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Whether you plan to hire a designer or figure it out for yourself, there are definitely some best practices you should follow when designing your Web site. In today’s small business search engine marketing column, “25 Design Best Practices for Your Small Business Web Site,” Carrie Hill offers a list to get a good start on finding the best Web site platform and design elements for your businesses audience.

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TopRank Online Marketing and the Direct Marketing Association have just announced a partnership to develop and deliver a series of educational workshops on social media marketing entitled, “Social Media Smarts: Introduction to the Social Web, Tools and Tactics.”

With marketers facing tighter budgets in the coming months, social media marketing offers new opportunities for companies to engage customers, improve brand awareness and increase sales with budgets that are more recession friendly than many traditional marketing efforts.

Leading the workshop will be Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, who will introduce participants to the marketing opportunities with social media through best and worst practices examples. As you can see from the photo in this post, I’m much taller than Lee.

But, according to George Markham Director, Education Services at Direct Marketing Association, “Lee is a well rounded digital marketer uniquely qualified with over ten years experience as an internet marketing consultant and a background in corporate training.” Markham adds, “As a consultant working on the front lines of social media marketing for companies large and small, Lee brings first-hand knowledge and real-world examples to teach attendees how to develop a successful social media strategy.”

But I’m still taller.

The Social Media Smarts workshop will provide attendees with insight into blogging and blog marketing, social networks, microblogging, social news and bookmarking, video sharing, image and audio sharing, wikis and social media analytics.

Rounding out the workshop is a social media strategy exercise that will empower attendees to create their own social media strategy and develop a framework for building a business case within their organizations.

Lee is quoted in a press release as saying, “As a high demand digital marketing and PR agency, we’re seeing tremendous benefits from educating in-house marketing staff on the finer points of social media marketing.” He adds, “Offering both good and bad social media marketing examples along with strategy, tools, tactics and analytics can really empower companies to succeed.”

Now, I’ve served on panels with Lee. I know Lee. And that’s exactly the way Lee talks.

The first of the Social Media Smarts workshop series will be conducted in New York, December 4th and 5th, at the Microtek training facility in lower Manhattan. If you are in the nieghborhood, drop by and heckle Lee.

And remember: I’m taller. Actually, I was standing on my toes for this photo. Lee’s actually pretty tall, too.

China Central Television (CCTV), the largest state-owned television network in China, recently ran a report accusing Baidu of questionable practices regarding medical search advertising. The accusations suggest that Baidu was allowing non-licensed medical companies to advertise while preventing some of the licensed ones from bidding on popular medical terms.

Baidu engaged in talks with CCTV to learn more about their accusations. They also removed paid search listings of medical companies who did not have proper licensing on file with Baidu.

Baidu maintains that they do not prevent the licensed companies from advertising. Advertising by medical companies makes up about 10-15% of Baidu’s revenue.

Of course, this is not the first time that state entities in China have caused unnecessary, undemocratic problems for Baidu.

Related Reading:
Baidu’s Profit Increases 91% in Third Quarter 2008

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The Interactive Advertising Bureau has announced new initiatives aimed at improving workflows and best practices.

Here they are:

• E- Business Interactive Standards, a beta release of an XML-based solution for automating the transfer of business order information between advertising agencies and media companies. Beta testing partners will be implementing and refining this solution throughout 2009.
• Interactive Advertising Workflow Best Practices, a document that provides comprehensive process recommendations to agencies and publishers for improved communications and efficient operations throughout the entire lifecycle of an advertising campaign. The document’s best practices focus on how to improve the management of advertising accounts by decreasing discrepancies, campaign set-up errors and billing cycles between advertising agencies and publishers. www.iab.net/workflow
• Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST), an XML-based solution designed to standardize communication between digital video players and servers. VAST allows publishers to increase digital video yield by utilizing ad networks to sell unsold inventory and reduce friction with buyers by allowing third-party ad tags
• Ad Load Performance Best Practices, a document that details how agencies and publishers should develop and serve digital advertising campaigns to reduce load time for ads and improve their performance. www.iab.net/adload
• Best Practices for Rich Media Ads in Asynchronous Ad Environments, a solution that establishes a standard set of rich media implementation rules for rich media ad vendors, creative development teams, and publishers when serving ads into dynamic environments.

“These initiatives will revolutionize our industry by improving efficiencies in the interactive business—which means growth for publishers, for agencies and for marketers who will now reach their customers even more effectively,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB.

What do you think of these initiatives? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Internet Advertising Up 15.2% for the First Half of 2008
Online Publishers Turning to Ad Networks to Sell Unused Inventory

Search engine optimization has reached new heights in the past year. Suddenly, everybody and their mom are interested in engaging in SEO in order to make their web sites more visible. Not everyone knows even the basic SEO practices and not everyone wants to spend some time on them. That is why [...]

Whether you’re in the house or outside it, fighting the good fight is never easy. Though we don’t do it enough, hat’s off to the in-house SEO practitioners everywhere. In today’s Searching for Meaning column, “Stop In-House SEO Disasters Now!,” Kevin Ryan identifies a few best practices and identify problematic personalities that in-house search marketers should understand.

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Since Hurricanes Gustav and especially Ike, a slowdown in Gulf Coast refineries have created gas shortages in the southeast. The gas station near my house runs out every other day, it seems.

But in tough times come rare opportunities. Web and audio conferencing companies are being looked to for increased communications when travel by car has literally been brought to a halt.

Copper Conferencing is one such company.

“Our phones are busier than ever as current and new customers ask for help in setting up telecommuting practices and expanding their use of conferencing as a best practice for smart business, but in particular among workers who are in the affected areas,” said Kathleen Thompson, Manager of Customer Care for Copper Conferencing.

Search engine marketers should watch out for these unique opportunities, especially during these volatile economic times. Do you have a client that can extend services such as these in the wake of natural disaster and in the midst of an economic crisis?

In an expert column today, Kevin Ryan encouraged search marketers to not spend less but to spend smart. I couldn’t agree more. Search remains quite affordable compared to traditional marketing efforts and takes the cake in ROI compared to some methods, especially branding ones.

So, while the water in the glass may have dropped with the stock market on Monday, it’s not completely dry. What can you do with what remains? Share your inspiration in the comments.

Misconfigured 404 error pages can affect your search engine rankings. The last thing you need in the Google index is an error page, but even worse are multiple URLs that were mistyped being returned as “OK.” In today’s Search Marketing Crossfire column, “Common Problems with 404 Error Pages,” Chris Boggs and Frank Watson outline some best practices for creating custom 404 pages.

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Over the past few days, more and more articles and posts from SES San Jose 2008 have been written. I’m sure there will be more stories to come out of the event, but this seems like a good time to recap the conference.

A quick Google News search for “SES San Jose” finds 276 articles from the past month – 138 when the duplicates are removed. A search in Yahoo! News for “SES San Jose” finds 114 articles from the past month. A query in Google Blog Search for “SES San Jose” finds 5,554 blog posts that mention “SES San Jose” from the past month, 337 when the duplicates are removed.

A little content analysis reveals the top 10 stories from the past month that were triggered by a keynote, panel, session or workshop at the 10th annual SES confence. Seven of these stories were ones that I predicted in my post on the Search Engine Watch Blog entitled “SES San Jose tip sheet for bloggers and journalists.” But three of the top stories came as surprises — even to an SES veteran like myself. Here, in order, are the Big Ten.

Kevin Ryan, VP, Global Content Director, SES & Search Engine Watch. (Twenty-three articles and 72 unduplicated blog posts, including “SES San Jose Photos – Paparazzi Style” by Lee Odden of TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.

Tuesday Morning Keynote by Satya Nadella, SVP, Search, Portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft. (Nineteen articles and 69 unduplicated blog posts, including “Is Microsoft’s Vision of Search Enough to Catch Google?” by Rob Hof of BusinessWeek. Rob wrote, “It would be dangerous for anyone to write off Microsoft. Its determination was on display today at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior VP of search, portal, and advertising platform group, told the crowd that he sees searchers moving from merely typing keywords into Google to getting tasks done.”

Matt Cutts, Software Engineer Guru of Google. (Ten articles, 74 blog posts and a YouTube video entitled “Matt Cutts on Big Brand BlackHat Sites” on the ChrisDaviesCa Channel. Chris happened to be sitting next to Matt, Google’s head of webspam, when Matt weighed in about big brand sites that have been banned for black hat seo practices during the Black Hat/White Hat session during SES San Jose 2008.

Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land. (Eleven articles, 41 unduplicated blog posts and a video interview by Mike McDonald of the WebProNews Video Blog entitled, “SES: Staying Focused On Search.”) Danny said that social marketing and all sorts of other things can be useful, but it’s important to get back to the search marketing basics.

Universal & Blended Search. (Four articles, 42 unduplicated blog posts and a video interview for the SESConferenceExpo channel entitled, “Johanna Wright of Google on Google Universal Search.” Johanna gives some insight into how vertical search results are blended into universal search results and advocates a thoughtful approach to making information accessible to Google through use of sitemaps and detailed descriptions.

Keynote Roundtable: Why Does Search Get the Credit for Everything? (Four articles and 38 blog posts, including “SES roundtable: Search shouldn’t take all the credit” by Ellen Keohane of DM News. Ellen wrote, “Search marketing often gets credit for the final sale or conversion, even when it shouldn’t, according to a roundtable discussion today at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose.”

Opening Keynote Presentation by Lee Siegel, author of Against the Machine. (Two articles and 27 unduplicated blog posts, including “Trust: The Backbone of Consumer Satisfaction” by Kevin Lee of ClickZ.) Kevin wrote, “In an afternoon keynote, Lee Siegel, author of “Against the Machine,” predicted a backlash against the Internet as it has evolved. His book (which I’ve partially read) discusses how there are unforeseen consequences due to technology, and the Internet is responsible for largely unforeseen positive and negative effects on individuals and society.”

Thursday Morning Keynote: Dan Heath, author of Made to Stick. (One article and 27 unduplicated blog posts, including “Dan Heath 2008 SES San Jose Keynote” on WebmasterRadio.FM.) Listen to Dan explain Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die as he delivers his 2008 SES San Jose Keynote. Dan offers six key factors for sticky ideas, plus offers numerous supporting examples.

Orion Panel: How Much Search is Enough? (Three articles and 19 unduplicated blog posts, including “SES San Jose 2008 - Where’s Money For Search Going?” by Manoj Jasra of WebProNews. Manoj wrote, “How much Search is enough? Aaron Goldman of Resolution Media, Steven Kaufman of Digitas, Robert Murray of iProspect and Bob Tripathi of Discover Financial Services were posed that very question by SES’s own, Kevin Ryan.”

Orion Panel: Technical & Information Giants. (Six articles and 15 unduplicated blog posts, including “Technical & Information Giants Keynote - SES San Jose 2008” by Jason McElweenie of The SEM Blog. Jason wrote, “WOW. Let me repeat that. WOW….This was a great panel of some very huge icons on the web today. Bravo SES!”