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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!

Have you every thought what your feelings would be if you found yourself in a life and death situation and saw somebody shot to death before your eyes?
Would you freeze and be transfixed to the spo…
More: continued here
looking death in the face

Yahoo had its third quarter earnings call yesterday and the news wasn’t pretty. I’m not really sure how much the economy can really be blamed for how dismal the news was. Search advertising should be one of the last sectors within advertising as a whole to be affected by the economy.

Here’s something else to consider: While companies are looking to streamline their operations in order to save costs, they often look to technology. Companies like Google who are investing in cloud computing or other technologies that create efficiencies are making the most of this unique opportunity and coming out ahead. They beat the street with their Q3 earnings. Apple had a good earnings call yesterday with their sales of laptops and iPhones.

So when you read the quote by Jerry Yang blaming the economy, don’t be surprised if your eyes roll.

We already know that Yahoo is cutting 10% of its workforce. But many have been saying for a long time that the workforce was already bloated. I feel for the Yahoo’s because it is maddening to work at a place where layoffs are imminent. Productivity goes down and everyone speculates whose job is safe and who needs a box for their things.

The press release with all the data points for the earnings is below. All the major news organizations are focused squarely on the 64% decline in net income.

Click to read the rest of this post…

Whether you’ve got them, in denial about them, or way too young to care about them, I’m not talking about those crinkly crow’s feet that grow around your eyes, or the grooves around your mouth. While …
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laugh lines comedy genre poetry forms part 1 nutty nonsense

Whether you’ve got them, in denial about them, or way too young to care about them, I’m not talking about those crinkly crow’s feet that grow around your eyes, or the grooves around your mouth. While …
More: continued here
laugh lines comedy genre poetry forms part 2 witty words

Earlier this week, I listed the “Top 10 Videos on YouTube from SES San Jose 2008.” Well, the WebProNews Video Blog has some top-rated videos from last month’s SES conference that you won’t find on YouTube – at least not yet.

Here are three of them:

SES: The Power of Thumbnails and Images

According to Rebecca Lieb of the ClickZ Network, recent surveys show that video has a greater chance of being clicked if it has a thumbnail or image. These results are evident in the popularity of universal search. Rebecca advises marketers to take these statistics seriously and recommends posting related videos with each new video just as I suggested in my interview with WebProNews, which appears below.

Website Optimizer Activates Pruning, Modifies Reports, and More

As you can tell by the title, Google’s Website Optimizer department has been busy. Tom Leung gives WebProNews the scoop on all their new features. First, through experiment pruning, users can disable any page that’s not doing as well as was hoped for. They’ve also enhanced their reports with a new color coded system, made it easier to validate tags on pages, and submitted several new demonstration videos to YouTube.

SES: Improving Conversion Rates

Landing pages can make or break a site, and no one wants that second situation to occur. In this interview with Mike McDonald, Frans Keylard, the director of optimization at Widemile, shares some tips that should help improve conversion rates.

There are a lot more interviews on the WebProNews Video Blog from SES San Jose 2008. That includes the five below with members of the Search Engine Watch staff.

SES San Jose: Kevin Ryan

WebProNews spoke with Kevin Ryan, the VP and Global Content Director of Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, at SES San Jose 2008!

SES: Focus On Call To Action

After going to all the trouble of getting users to your site, you don’t want your landing page to turn them away. According to Tim Ash, a Search Engine Watch Expert Columnist, clutter is the most common problem with landing pages. Tim explains how you have to give users breathing space so they can focus on their main purpose for coming to the site.

SES: The Blessing and Curse of Conversions

Did you ever think of conversions as a blessing and a curse? As Sage Lewis, another Search Engine Watch Expert Columnist, tells WebProNews, everything is trackable online. In most cases, this is a blessing. But for those marketing efforts which do not convert, it can be a curse.

SES: Being Careful With Blogs

Blogs are powerful communication tools, and companies should embrace them. Yet there are things to watch out for, and Search Engine Watch Guest Blogger Amanda Watlington explores some potential pitfalls in this interview with Mike McDonald.

SES: Get on Top of Video Distribution

After listening to a spirited musical intro from a certain Search Engine Watch Blog Correspondent, WebProNews got me to tell my secret to video distribution. I explain how video optimization on your own website was enough in years past, but now in order to succeed you must distribute your optimized videos to sites like YouTube, Yahoo Video, and more.

Okay, taunting Buckeyes from The Ohio State University by having a Wolverine sing the University of Michigan fight song may seem like an odd way to open an interview, but it was payback for the interview below that I conducted earlier this year.

Mike McDonald of WebProNews, Web Video Guru, at SES NY 2008

Mike McDonald talks about the humble beginnings of e-business internet video channel WebProNews and some of its funnier moments of adolescence, like forgetting to hit record. Stay tuned ’til the end to see and hear the University of Kentucky Wildcats cheer!

Get it? Got it? Good.

Google has announced their replacement of outgoing CFO George Reyes. Former Bell Canada CFO Patrick Pichette has been offered the position along with an employment package as good as many first round draft picks in sports.

As the San Jose Mercury News details, Pichette will get a $500,000 signing bonus and the rest of the package makes his first year’s pay in the millions.

Welcome to the team Patrick.

Search Engine Strategies Toronto is coming up June 16-18, 2008. To give attendees a sneak preview of some of the trends in search engine marketing that will be discussed at the event, we’ve interviewed Ken Jurina, the President and CEO of Epiar.

Ken will be one of the speakers at the “SEM Toolkit: Marketers Share” session, which will be held on Wednesday, June 18, from 12:45 to 2:00 p.m. And Epiar and Yahoo! Canada will be hosting The Official Search Engine Strategies Toronto After-Party on Tuesday, June 17.

But, we interviewed Ken primarily for his expert opinion. Scoring tickets to his party was only a secondary consideration. (As Maxwell Smart would say, “Would you believe I’m from New England, which still thinks the term ‘party’ means Boston Tea Party?”)

Seriously, as president and founder of Top Draw and Epiar, Ken has more than 15 years of expertise in traditional advertising and Internet marketing. And I’ve heard him speak at SES New York, Chicago, San Jose, and Toronto.

Q. Can you give me a brief overview of some of the trends the search marketing industry is seeing this year and what the next 5 to 10 years might look like?

A. The Microsoft bid for Yahoo! accompanied by the subsequent bid withdrawal, along with the much talked about Google-Yahoo! search advertising partnership have certainly resulted in much speculation regarding the future of search marketing as we know it. I also don’t think the deal is entirely off the table just yet.

Ask’s withdrawal from mainstream search as it abandoned its efforts to compete against the search giants in March has also affected the search landscape. Over the last 12 months Google’s search share has increased slightly, Yahoo! search share has remained stagnant in aggregate, and Microsoft’s share has fallen.

If we look at trends from the perspective of consumer behavior we continue to see increasing growth in the use of image and video search. Another consumer trend significantly affecting the search marketing space is the astronomical increase in the influence of social media marketing, in the form of consumer feedback and reviews, on brands, ecommerce conversions and tactical refinements of on-page content.

Google’s Universal Search results have been seen to have an impact on the traditional F-shaped heat maps generated by eye-tracking studies as eyes are now first drawn to image and video search results. The inclusion of the OneBox, as well as Sitelinks and ‘Search Within a Site’ search box features, are all affecting the usability of the results in the organic listings. User interaction is facilitated by these features and the probability is that the trend in click-throughs will skew towards increased searcher interaction with more ‘visible’, usable, graphic listings – assuming the relevancy factor is retained.

Google has also recently revised its display URL protocol in AdWords, and has been experimenting with the inclusion of video results in the paid search listings.

As to what the future holds, I think current behavioral trends and further improvements in the relevance and universal appeal of results provided by the search engines will continue unabated. However, based on the dramatic events in the industry in the last few months alone, at this stage I think it would be fool-hardy and irresponsible to attempt to predict anything more specific.

Q. How will marketers have to adjust their budgets to compensate for the upcoming changes?

A. Marketers should seriously consider budgeting for continued SEO initiatives, particularly regarding Internet market research on consumer search behavior. Assigning marketing dollars to image and video production and optimization is imperative, as is integrating with relevant social communities. Brands need to aggressively begin to empower brand proponents and embrace reputation management (RM) tools. RM has only recently gained the recognition it should have attained years ago. With the huge growth in both social influence and social media marketing, and the impact of reviews and consumer feedback on online purchase decisions, the need for brand transparency is becoming ever more important. Consequently, the need to facilitate consumer feedback and interaction is key to future success in the search and ecommerce space.

Q. How important is it to understand all the online touch-points of your visitors?

A. This answer is basically an addendum to the previous one. Understanding where and how your online market interacts online, what they do, and what they want, need and expect to achieve at each touch-point is imperative.

Meeting them on common ground in forums, on blogs, and in the social space is very important. Openly dealing with detractors and embracing and supporting evangelists is best done in this space.

Consumer exposure to your brand and online offering is unlikely to be limited to the information housed without your official web site. Review sites, feedback consumer forums and blogs are going to discuss businesses with or without official permission – freedom of expression online has reached previously unimagined new heights as regards the impact of this freedom on brand reputations. Proactively embracing the social space via RM tools and facilitating interaction on your own blog or site is no longer something to merely be considered, it has become a necessity. Advertising these social – touch-points via paid search is also something to be considered.

Q. When we talk about “tricks of the trade” used by search marketers, can you share a bit on what kind of “competitive intelligence” is required and what exactly is “exotic analytics?”

A. RM tools allow you to see what’s being said about you and your competition in the online space. Internet market research allows you to see how your consumers are behaving online and what terms they are utilizing when searching for your offering.

By understanding what your online market is really looking for – not what you think or want them to look for – can provide competitive intelligence on brand awareness and market share. It can also identify new product or service opportunities, consumer feedback and trending data, and a host of other factors that will allow you to refine your online offering.

As for “exotic analytics”, different web analytics software packages offer different levels of service and different features. Some are highly advanced for sure – trying to predict visitor behavior based on trending for example. However, a wealth of information is available through the basic measurement standards if it is analyzed properly and thoroughly.

Q. What excites you about Search Engine Strategies Toronto? What do you look forward to most?

A. The Epiar / Yahoo! Canada Party on Tuesday June 17 of course! There will be more details to follow closer to the event but you can expect it will be a party to remember like we are known for.

Q. Are there any advantages to being a Search Marketer based in Canada rather than any other place in the world?

A. Numerous advantages:
• 85% of Canadians have high-speed Internet access (one of the top ten levels of broad band penetration in the world);
• 94% of online Canadians interacted with Google and Microsoft sites in February;
• Canadian online business reaped $62.7B in 2007, an increase of 26% year over year, but the proportion of private sector companies who sold goods and services online remained relatively stable at 8%.

The market is big, it’s relatively untapped, and the returns are obvious. The future of search in Canada is promising. In fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that online ad spend will grow faster in Canada than anywhere else in the world over the next 5 years for two primary reasons:
1. high broadband penetration
2. lower online market saturation

It’s great to be Canadian, eh!

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