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If you register today to attend Search Engine Strategies Chicago, which will be held Dec. 8-12, 2008, you can save up to $200 with the Early Bird Rate.

So, why would you want to attend the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest?

Let me give you 4 reasons to go to SES Chicago.

1. You’ll want to attend as many of the 74 keynote speeches, strategic development workshops, Orion panels, conference sessions, and SEM training workshops as you can. If you look over the agenda, you’ll see lots of topics that weren’t discussed at Search Engine Strategies Chicago a year ago. In fact, you’ll see new content that wasn’t covered at SES San Jose back in August. Heading into 2009 using old strategies and tactics makes about as much sense as optimizing your website for AltaVista. Things change in the search industry and savvy SEOs and SEMs understand the competitive advantage of staying up-to-date.

2. If you look over the list of sponsors and exhibitors for SES Chicago, you’ll see familiar names like Acronym Media, DoubleClick, iProspect, PrintPlace.com and TMP Directional Marketing as well as new names like AdBuyer.com, ideaLaunch, Rosetta, The Search Agency and SEO Samba. So, whether this is your first Search Engine Strategies Chicago or you’ve attended every one held since 2003, there will be plenty of products and services to check out on the show floor.

3. Next, you’ll want to take advantage of the special events and networking opportunities. On Tuesday, Dec. 9, DoubleClick will be holding a networking lunch from noon to 12:45 p.m. It will be presenting a case study on multi-channel tracking that will address how to de-duplicate search conversions when using numerous online channels. Later that afternoon, Google will hold a sponsored session entitled, “Google Site Search: Fast, Relevant, Customized Search Results for Your Website.” Google’s Nitin Mangtani will be discussing how customers are using Google Site Search to grow their businesses and how you can do the same for yours. And here’s a hot tip for first time attendees of SES Chicago: If you hang out at Kitty O’Sheas, the authentic Irish pub on the ground floor of the Hilton Chicago, you can network with fellow marketers and search engine industry professionals after hours. Plus, I recommend the shepard’s pie and Bailey’s cheese cake.

4. Now, this fourth reason will only make sense if Big 10 football is more important to you than search engine reputation management. As those of us who grew up in the Midwest already know, there’s a big football game tomorrow: Ohio State vs Michigan. Now, I’m a Wolverine. But I’ve made some friendly bets with others in the search industry who are Buckeyes. And as you can see from the photo in this post, if we lose the big game, I have to wear a Buckeye shirt to the next Search Engine Strategies conference — again. And, we’ve lost a lot over the past few years. So, depending on whether you are a graduate of the University of Michigan or The Ohio State University, I encourage you to come to Chicago in December to see who is wearing which sweatshirt this year.

In summary, there are three good reasons to go to SES Chicago no matter what happens tomorrow. And there’s a 4th good reason if Michigan upsets Ohio State, like we did in 1993.

Go Blue!

I spoke at PubCon last week — about How SMBs Can Use PR Campaigns To Grow Traffic and Alternative Discovery and SEO - Feeds, PDFs, and Blog SEO.

But, enough about me. Let’s talk about the top trends spotted at last week’s search engine and Internet marketing conference and expo in Vegas, baby!

For the record, I not only spoke at PubCon, I also looked at the 88 articles about it in Google News, the 77 articles in Yahoo! News, the 406 posts in Google Blog Search from the past month, and the 799 posts that IceRocket has found from the past month.

Then, I used a new tool called Twist, which lets you see trends in Twitter, to chart the hundreds of Tweets about PubCon over the past 30 days.

But, I could have just as easily looked at the session agenda grid for PubCon. Why? Because Brett Tabke, PubCon’s organizer, had set most of the agenda for 2009 when he selected the keynote speakers and creating the conference tracks. That’s why.

So, it was dead easy to spot the top trends at the six-track educational conference hosted by SearchEngineWorld and WebmasterWorld. Heck, even the most sleep-deprived attendee would know they were video, blogs and Twitter.

Video is hot — and YouTube video is red hot. This was reflected in the choice of George Wright, the VP Marketing & Sales at Blendtec, as one of the keynote speakers.

Described as the “The best viral marketing campaign ever,” George’s viral marketing campaign, “Will it Blend?,” has changed the face and the future of online marketing. Seen by more than 100 million people on the Internet and reported on by traditional media outlets like the Today Show, the Tonight Show, and the History Channel, Will it Blend? continues to deliver unprecedented corporate awareness through social media channels. This new form of marketing has delivered a 700% increase in sales for Blendtec, a small Utah based blender manufacturer, with an initial investment of $50.

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice that video is hot, Brett added a Video and Multimedia track with five sessions to drive the point home.

Blogs were big, too. This was reflected in three tracks at PubCon: one on Social Media Marketing, another on Social, Brand, and Reputation Management, and a third on Linking as Social Media Networking.

Now, blogs certainly aren’t considered the “newbies” of the social media scene – “granddaddies” is probably a more appropriate name. But that gives them an advantage from a marketing perspective – the medium has matured and moved from early adopter phase to the mainstream. That means more consumers are not only reading blogs; they are being influenced by blog content when it comes to what they decide to buy and who they decide to buy it from.

If you want a second opinion, sign up for tomorrow’s free webinar: “Consumers and the Influence of Blogs: What it Means for Your Marketing Mix.” It starts at 2:00 P.M. EST/11:00 A.M. PST and will be moderated by Kevin Ryan, SES Advisory Board Chair and CEO of Motivity Marketing. It will feature Barry Parr, Analyst, JupiterResearch, and Rob Crumpler, President and CEO, BuzzLogic. They will be discussion a new BuzzLogic-sponsored research study conducted by JupiterResearch, entitled, “Harnessing the Power of Blogs.”

But, you could also see the power of blogs at virtually ever session at PubCon.

In fact, there were tables in the sessions so the dozens of bloggers who were live blogging the event could blog more comfortably. (I think this is a first: I’m not sure that I’ve ever put bloggers, blogging and blog in the same sentence before.)

And what about Twitter? No, none of the keynote speakers was from free social networking and micro-blogging service. And, no, there were no Twitter tracks. And I can’t even find Twitter mentioned in the title of any of the 85 sessions.

But, trust me, you couldn’t miss the Twitter trend if you’d hit every one of the special events — from the exhibitor cocktail reception sponsored by Bruce Clay and Apogee Search, to the SEOmoz WereWolf Event, to the WebmasterRadio Search Bash, sponsored by Microsoft Live Search.

For example, I was sitting in the session entitled, Five Bloggers and a Microphone - What’s The Worst That Can Happen? It was moderated by Ken Jurina, and the speakers included:
• Andy Beal, Internet Marketing Consultant, Marketing Pilgrim LLC,
• Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing,
• Michael McDonald, Managing Editor, iEntry Inc.,
• Barry Schwartz, President, RustyBrick, Inc.,
• Jane Copland, Search Marketing Consultant, SEOMoz.

When it came time for Q&A, one of the first questions came from a woman in the audience, who said, “I asked my circle of friends on Twitter what I should ask you, and I got eight questions. If I eliminate the seven that are inappropriate, here’s one that the panel can answer….”

That brought down the house.

Oh, PubCon also had lots of tracks and sessions on SEO, SEM and interactive site reviews. But they’ve had those for years. The new news is video, blogs and Twitter. These are the top trends that I spotted at this year’s PubCon.

So far, the majority of marketing budgets are not facing changes or cuts due to the economy, according to survey results released by eMetrics.

60% of respondents said their marketing budgets haven’t changed.

After that, the news gets a little discouraging.

27.6% said their budgets are being affected negatively, while 6.9% answered very negatively.

Only 3.4% said their budgets were being affected positively and a miniscule 1.7% answered very positively.

Don’t stay bummed for too long. The economy seems to finally getting senior management on board with those ever important analytics.

80.4% of marketers say interest in web analytics from senior management in the past 6 months has increased. On that note, it might be a good time to start pitching landing page testing as well.

So what advertising campaigns are specifically being affected? Check out this chart:

Some of the channels are being outsourced:

You can view the full report here (pdf).

What are your thoughts on the economy and marketing budgets? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Using some past economic low times as historical guides, what can the online world expect in the coming months? In today’s building brand equity column, “Economic Depression 2.0,” Erik Qualman notes that one likely outcome is a permanent shift from traditional channels to online marketing. Yes, online marketing could reach the highest percentage of marketing spend sooner than any of us imagined.

» Full story

Last April, Yahoo unveiled details of a forthcoming online display advertising platform called AMP, to be released in the third quarter of 2008. Well, it’s Q3 and AMP was launched this week at Advertising Week in New York. Except, it’s not called AMP anymore. It’s been rebranded as APT.

Jon Hamm, star of the AMC Drama Mad Men which is based on a 1940s ad firm, was on hand to celebrate. This really excited Jerry Yang.

“The advertising landscape has changed dramatically since the days when Don Draper was roaming the halls of Sterling Cooper,” said Jerry Yang. “While Mad Men celebrates the Madison Avenue of 40 years ago, APT from Yahoo! clearly represents the future.”

APT is being touted as a streamlining of the display advertising process, from planning to buying and optimizing.

APT will undergo a phased roll-out. Select newspapers get the first stab at it, specifically publishers the San Francisco Chronicle of Hearst Newspapers and San Jose Mercury News of MediaNews Group.

Features include:

• Guaranteed cross-selling with pre-defined selling rules
• Ad Exchange for non-guaranteed inventory
• Advanced audience targeting techniques based upon behavior and geography
• Inventory lookup and forecasting across individual and partner sites
• Creative workflow automation and personalization
• Powerful rate card tools for improved yield management
• Filters for better controls around creatives
• Flexible and powerful APIs
• Federated ad call to support multiple ad formats

“One of the major benefits of APT from Yahoo! is the fact that it’s an open system, designed to enable advertisers to reach their audiences in their favorite places across the Web, and publishers to monetize inventory across the broadest possible demand channels,” said Sue Decker. “As we transform the advertising marketplace, we’re excited to have key members of the Newspaper Consortium, the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, lead the way in this historic journey.”

APT (as AMP) has often been one of Yahoo’s defenses about the strength of its company. Yahoo has undergone much scrutiny in the past year, especially since Microsoft attempted to acquire it. They’ve placed high hopes on AMP, and now it’s go time.

Related Reading:
Yahoo! to Integrate Right Media and AMP Ad Management Platforms, But When?
Yahoo! AMP! plus Full Text: Yahoo Proxy Statement

The real Emmy story last night came near the end, when Tina Fey arrived on the stage for last time and received the 30 Rock team award. She reeled off all the places where the critical hit could be seen online, including Hulu and NBC, and then said something like “and occasionally on TV” as well.

Perhaps Fey sounded a bit promotional but it seemed, well, normal. We definitely live in a video-on-demand world and TV shows are viewed when they are convenient for viewers. In her acceptance speech, Tina was shining the light on all the online access points.

However, we’re not searching with a video mindset yet. When googling “30 Rock,” you first see an NBC paid ad that directs searchers to their network portal. In the organic results, the program’s homepage comes up first. There’s no Hulu or other video access points in the results, only information about the award-winning program.

We’re still in that 500-channel universe, without an easy or standard searching mechanism. In this 30 Rock example, visitors are directed to channels containing their programs or else to the program homepage, rather than to specific episodes they might really want to see.

The TV shows aren’t directly accessible unless you are consciously refining results for videos or deciding to use a video search engine. When all the results are videos, at least you can save a few clicks. Still there tends to be duplication based on the different outlets and, even then, you may not land on the exact episode that interests you most.

On the video destinations, the searching mechanisms are somewhat lacking as well. For videos, the assumption is that you will know which episodes you have missed and browse what’s available until you find the right date and description.

At this point, people are trained to navigate through menus and directories, and don’t really know what they are missing. With search, they would be able to find what’s interesting within an episode or discover moments they want to see again. If there’s social inputs, then visitors would also benefit from what others have found interesting too.

In the search world, we know there are some real opportunities ahead. Now that viewers know their programs are available online, consumption can be increased with better searching and discovery mechanisms.

Local SEO is a must for businesses that sell products locally to a specified geographical area. In today’s vertical search column, “Getting to Know Local SEO,” local search expert Gregg Stewart shows how the channels consumers are using to search are changing. Is your marketing strategy adapting?

» Full story

Hello friends, Sharmi Nair here.
We watch movie reviews made by many newspapers, television channels, etc. There are ways to make your reviews interesting. For example,
1) People who had a…
More: continued here
movies review

Today, Yahoo announced that Right Media Exchange will feature LucidMedia’s patented ClickSense contextual advertising. The targeted ad solution has been testing since May, culminating in a partnership between the two. Buyers and publishers will be able to contextually categorize 60 vertical channels in Right Media Exchange’s display advertising inventory.

“LucidMedia’s ClickSense technology will significantly help increase the prospective yield of a publisher’s available inventory and improve an advertiser’s ability to contextually target ads to relevant content and categories through the Right Media Exchange,” said Bill Wise, General Manager, Right Media. “We are excited to bring this capability to Exchange participants and look forward to working with the LucidMedia team to deepen the use of ClickSense across the Exchange.”

Related Reading:
Yahoo! to Integrate Right Media and AMP Ad Management Platforms, But When?
Yahoo’s Latest Partnership: Online and Mobile Advertising Integration with Publicis
Yahoo to Acquire Right Media

With the rise of social networking, employers are left wondering if or how the trend affects their bottom line. Many have decided that Facebook and MySpace in the workplace are not appropriate (for content or productivity reasons) and have banned the sites from being accessed at their offices.

To which I say: Good luck with that!

With the onslaught of iPhones, resisting social media (and I don’t mean for marketing purposes) will prove to be futile anyway. Go ahead. Fire someone for accessing their Facebook iPhone app. But don’t be looking for any “Best Places to Work” awards anytime soon.

And when morale is down, productivity goes down. Call it anecdotal, but the places I’ve worked at with low morale lose productivity to gossip and office politics. What they’re really looking for is support in a difficult workplace. So ban social media all you want, your employees will still find ways to “waste time.” Or as I like to call it, not go completely mental.

On the flip side, social networking more often than not helps your business. Think of all the contacts that your employees have. All those college and high school pals now have careers in a variety of industries. Perhaps there are great partnerships to be had in these vast social networks.

Or when its time to hire a new employee, these networks are a great place to start.

Social media is also a great way to stay on top of your industry - to learn about things that are happening, what’s new. You can’t do it all yourself - or even with just your marketing team. What if a guy/gal in IT catches wind of a new program being implemented at a competitor? Chances are, they’ll find it out via a social network, blog, Twitter, etc.

I say kill those largely unfounded fears and allow social networking in the workplace. Like the rest of business and life, it won’t be perfect. But it can be reasonable.

By the way, one of the new hot things in social media is internal social networking, sometimes referred to as enterprise social media. This can foster genuine channels of good communication among departments across your company.

What’s your opinion? Yay or nay to social media for employees? Leave a comment and tell us how it is!

Related Reading:
Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us?
Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn