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During Search Engine Strategies San Jose back in August, I did a video interview with Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team. It will be uploaded to the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube tomorrow.

Why the wait?

As Maury Sline explained to The Blues Brothers, “A gig like that, you gotta prepare the proper exploitation.”

So, here’s a taste of what you can look forward to seeing and hearing in tomorrow’s video interview: Matt talks about his job interview at Google before he joined the company as a software engineer in January 2000. He takes a look at trends in the industry, including mobile search. He praises an iPhone App developed by Barry Schwartz, President of RustyBrick. And he discusses the Cuttlets, the people who crowd around him at every search conference.

And what can you do today to ensure that you don’t miss the Matt Cutts video interview tomorrow? I’m glad you asked.

First, go to the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel and take a quick look around. You’ll find there are now 184 videos from SES London, SES New York, SES Toronto, and SES San Jose 2008.

According to YouTube Insight, these 184 videos currently have more than 45,000 combined views. That’s about three times more views than the number of people who attended these four conferences and expos this year.

And there will be more video interviews added during and after Search Engine Strategies Chicago, which will be held Dec. 8-12, 2008. That’s a lot of content — and a lot of insights from top search experts and the search engines themselves.

Now, some of these video interviews are uploaded to YouTube during each SES conference. But others are uploaded in the weeks and months following a show.

So, if you want to be alerted when the Matt Cutts video interview has been posted, all you need to do is hit the orange “Subscribe” button in the upper left hand corner of the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel, which already has 142 subscribers.

To embed one of these video interviews, just copy the code from the “Embed” box — which you can find in the “About This Video” box when you’re watching the video. Once you’ve copied the code, just paste it into your website or blog to embed it.

And if you want to embed several of these video interviews, use the Search Engine Strategies video widget. It will let you customize a SES Video Player Widget for the audience on your website or blog.

For example, in the header options, I selected the standard link and said I’m blogging at SES Chicago. For my playlist content, I selected videos of everyone, picked two thumbnails with a maximum of 25 results. And for my format option, I selected a vertical orientation. And the SES Video Player Widget generated the code for me to past into this blog post.

Now, I could have selected a customized header. And after going through an authentication process, I could have customized my playlist — and display only videos of my company. Or I could display videos of everyone, but with videos of my company first. You can see an example of this on the SEO-PR website.

Or, you can see an example of a more bi-partisan approach on the Search Engine Strategies Chicago home page — just below the fold. (By the way, if you register by Friday, Nov. 21, you can save up to $200 with the Early Bird rate.)

Now, I don’t need to explain the benefits of adding video to your blog. Search engine marketers and popular bloggers understand that already. But consider the benefits of adding relevant content from the latest SES conference and expo — quality content that can be customized for your audience. And, don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself. It is useful content that your website’s visitors will find beneficial or your blog readers will find valuable.

What’s the catch?

Well, if you select videos of everyone, then you might end up with a Matt Cutts video interview on your website or blog. And if anyone watches it, that would give the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube more views.

Or, as Elwood told Maury Sline, “I know all about that stuff. I have been exploited all my life.”

New market research has found that blog readers are strongly influenced by blog content when it comes to purchase decisions across a number of categories, and that blogs play a key role in ushering readers to the point of an actual purchase. BuzzLogic, a social media analysis company and ad network, sponsored the market research and JupiterResearch, a Forrester research company, conducted the survey of more than 2,000 online consumers in the US.

Their Harnessing the Power of Blogs survey also found that blog readership has grown 300% over the past four years. The results also suggest that consumers who read blogs more than once per month — or frequent blog readers — use blogs as the top online navigation tool to discover other blog content, ranking higher than general Web search or blog search.

The new market research will be the focus of a free webinar, “Consumers and the Influence of Blogs: What it Means for Your Marketing Mix,” which will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT. The free webinar will be moderated by Matt McGowan, vice president and publisher for Incisive Media’s digital marketing businesses, and will feature Barry Parr, Analyst at JupiterResearch, and Rob Crumpler, President and CEO of BuzzLogic.

Looking more closely at how blogs factor into consumer purchase decisions and the nature of blog influence on buying behavior, the survey found:
• Blogs influence purchases: 50% of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information.
• Blogs sway more purchases among readers than social networks: More frequent blog readers say they trust relevant blog content for purchase decisions than content from social networking sites. Enid Burns of The ClickZ Network focused on this finding in her recent story about the survey, “Study: Blogs Influence Purchases More Than Social Sites.”
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631303
• Niche focus ups influence factor: For those who have found blog content useful for product decisions, 56% said blogs with a niche focus and topical expertise were key sources.
• Blogs go beyond tech: Outside of technology-related purchases, for which 31% of readers say blogs are useful, other key categories include: media and entertainment (15%); games/toys and/or sporting goods (14%); travel (12%); automotive (11%); and health (10%).

According to the study, blogs factor in to critical stages of the purchase process, weighing most heavily at the actual moment of a purchase decision. When it comes to respondents who said they have trusted blog content for purchase decisions in the past, over half (52 percent) say blogs played a role in the critical moment they decided to move forward with a purchase.

Blog readers were also surveyed about the influence of blogs as it relates to the following steps of the purchase process:
• 21% decide on a product or service,
• 19% refine choices,
• 19% get support and answers,
• 17% discover products and services,
• 14% assure,
• 13% inspire a purchase
• 7% execute a purchase.

For frequent blog readers, ads on blogs are on par with sponsored search results. However, trust of blog advertising exceeds that of social networking site advertising. A quarter of these readers say they trust ads on a blog they read; paid search links also accounted for 25% of the responses, while 19% say they trust ads on social networking sites.

The study also suggests that ads on blogs spur a number of activities: 40% of blog readers have taken action as a result of viewing an ad on a blog; 50% of frequent blog readers say this is the case. The top activities include:
• 17% read product reviews online,
• 16% sought out more info on a product or service,
• 16% visited a manufacturer or retailer website.

JupiterResearch designed and fielded the survey in August 2008 to online consumers selected randomly from the NPD Group US online consumer panel. A total of 2,210 individuals responded. For more information on the survey’s methodology, go to JupiterResearch.

Now, blogs certainly aren’t considered the “newbies” of the social media scene – “granddaddies” is probably a more appropriate term. But that gives them an advantage from a marketing perspective – the medium has matured and moved from early adopter phase to the mainstream.

This may come as a surprise to some search engine marketers, but blog readers do not appear to rely as heavily on search as a means to find new blogs as consumers of traditional online media do. According to the new survey, one in five consumers who have read a blog in the past 12 months — or general blog readers — use blog links to discover new blogs. Further, the study suggests blogs are not consumed in isolation — 49% of blog readers and 71% of frequent readers read more than one blog per session. Other key findings include:
• Links more powerful than search: For frequent readers, links beat search as a navigation tool: 38 percent said blog links were the top tool for discovering new blog content as compared to 34 percent who voted for Web search.
• Links signal trust: For frequent readers, blog links appear to have similar impact as a trusted recommendation from a person (a response from 39 percent of survey participants).
• Blog search not yet mainstream: Blog search engines received the lowest ranking from respondents: 6 percent of general readers and 11 percent of frequent readers say they use these tools to discover new blogs.

If you are interested in getting more details about Harnessing the Power of Blogs, register for the free Webinar. Again, it will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT.

Blogger has released a cool new feature that lets readers offer quick responses. It’s called Reactions, and it allows bloggers to create a variety of responses for their readers to choose. One possible implementation of the feature looks like this:

You’re not limited to “LOL” or “Fail.” You can set your own annotations:

To use the feature, go to Layout > Page Elements. Click the “Edit” link under the Blog Posts element. Check the Reactions box and enter words, separated by a comma. Hit Save and you’re ready to go.

Related Reading:
Blogger Releases Two Updates Regarding iGoogle and Commenting
Google Upgrades Blogger With Privacy Features & More

Before I continue with the other blunders that Tad Chef shared in his article titled “7 Weirdest SEO Mistakes Big Companies Make Abroad,” let me acknowledge some readers who left comments in the previous post. gMoney asked for the link to the original article – sorry for my oversight, it has been fixed. [...]

Google has reached an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which represented a broad class of authors and publishers to expand online access to in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. The publications will come from the library collections participating in Google Book Search.

The agreement was reached after two years of negotiations. The deal includes Google dishing out $125 million to establish the Book Rights Registry, which would resolve an existing class action lawsuit brought by the groups.

If the court approves, the agreement allows:

• More Access to Out-of-Print Books — Generating greater
  exposure for millions of in-copyright works, including hard-to-find
  out-of-print books, by enabling readers in the U.S. to search these
  works and preview them online
• Additional Ways to Purchase Copyrighted Books — Building off publishers’ and authors’ current efforts and further expanding the
  electronic market for copyrighted books in the U.S., by offering users the ability to purchase online access to many in-copyright books
• Institutional Subscriptions to Millions of Books Online –Offering a means for U.S. colleges, universities and other organizations to obtain subscriptions for online access to collections from some of
  the world’s most renowned libraries
• Free Access From U.S. Libraries — Providing free, full-text, online viewing of millions of out-of-print books at designated computers
  in U.S. public and university libraries
• Compensation to Authors and Publishers and Control Over Access to Their Works — Distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google and, prospectively, from similar programs that may be established by other providers, through a newly created independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry that will also locate rightsholders, collect and maintain accurate rightsholder information, and provide a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project.

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, together with the authors, publishers, and libraries, we have been able to make a great leap in this endeavor,” said Sergey Brin, co-founder & president of technology at Google. “While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their
fingertips.”

What do you think about the agreement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading:
Google SERPs Promoting Google Book Links
Google Courts Book Publishers, Librarians

A whopping 94% of moms rely on other moms during a purchasing decision. So, it comes as no surprise to learn that mom bloggers can have a powerful impact on your online marketing campaign.

Here’s some data from Mom Central Consulting to help let this idea sink in deep into your marketing grey matter:

• 96% of Moms value recommendations they find on Mom Blogs
• Over 78% of Mom Bloggers now review products and services
• More than 60% of Mom Bloggers consider making money important and want more connectivity with companies
• 37% of Mom Bloggers have been contacted as resources for the press

Woah! Did you see that last number? Kind of small considering how powerful moms are. There’s clearly an opportunity for you to go in there and snag some good mom blog coverage.

Need tips on how to approach bloggers? (Hint: It’s not like pitching a journalist)

• Send them a friendly, personalized email. Do not mass email.
• Ask permission to send them a sample of your product or free trial of your service. Do not send unsolicited!
• Offer them something to give away to their readers
• Be accessible to answer questions
• Be cordial even when you get a bad review. It’s ok to comment and defend your product (politely!). But it’s even better to take their criticism to heart and make your product or service better.

What are your tips for approaching mom bloggers? Any success stories? Share your success in the comments!

Related Reading:
Moms See Search as Task-Oriented; Websites as Entertainment
Women More Likely Than Men to Begin Real Estate Search Online
Yahoo Wants Women Now

If you are like me, then you are a master of just-in-time planning. While Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008 won’t be held until December 8-12, if you register by tomorrow – Friday, Sept. 26 – you can take advantage of the “recession special” and save up to $600.

So, if you were already planning to attend, register now and save some dough. If you haven’t made up your mind yet, look over the conference agenda below pronto.

SES Chicago is the only major search engine marketing conference and expo in the Midwest. And, with more than 70 conference sessions, strategic development workshops, keynote presentations, Orion panels, and training workshops, I’ll bet you find plenty of content that was designed for you – whether this is your first SES conference ever or the fifth one that you’re going to attend this year.

This is especially true if you are involved in retail marketing. There is a Retailer Track on Tuesday, Dec. 9, and a Vertical & Retail Track on Wednesday, Dec. 10.

I’ve been optimizing SES schedules for clients and Search Engine Watch readers for years. And there are plenty of sessions at SES Chicago 2008 that everyone should attend, including:
• On Monday, Dec. 8, attend the Conference Welcome/Orientation and Opening Keynote from 9:00 to 10:15 a.m. and the “Orion Panel: CEO vs. SEO” from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m.;
• On Tuesday, Dec. 9, attend the Morning Keynote Presentation from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. and the “Orion Panel: Why Does Search Get all the Credit?” from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.; and
• On Wednesday, Dec. 10, attend the Morning Keynote from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

But, there are four to five concurrent tracks over the four-day conference and there are three concurrent training workshops on Friday. So, attendees of SES Chicago 2008 will need to make some choices about what to attend.

For first-time Search Engine Strategies attendees, here are the conference sessions and training workshops that I’d recommend:

• On Monday, Dec. 8, attend “Search Industry Update” from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., “Measuring Success in a 2.0 World” from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., and “Search and Packaged Goods” from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., and “Landing Page Testing & Tuning” 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
• On Tuesday, Dec. 9, attend “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing” from 10:30 to 11:45am, and “SEO Tools” from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 10, attend “Search Advertising 101” from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., “Getting Vertical Search Right” from 12:45 to 2:00 p.m., “Blogging for Business” from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m., and “In House: Lessons Learned & Victories Won” from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m.
• On Thursday, Dec. 11, attend “How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively With Your IT Department to Get Stuff Done” from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., the “Ad Copy Continuity Clinic” from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m., and the “Site Clinic” from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• On Friday, Dec. 12, consider attending the “Search Engine Optimization Workshop” from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., and the “Optimizing for Universal Search” workshop from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

For veteran attendees responsible for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, here are the SES conference sessions and training workshops that I’d recommend:

• On Monday, Dec. 8, attend “Search Industry Update” from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., “Measuring Success in a 2.0 World” from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., “Is There Life Beyond Google?” from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., and “Landing Page Testing & Tuning” 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
• On Tuesday, Dec. 9, attend “Advanced Keyword Research” from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., and “Managing Automated PPC Bid Management” from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 10, attend “Advanced B2B” from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., “Search Advertising Tools” from 12:45 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., “Ads in a Quality Score World” from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m., and “Advanced Paid Search Techniques” from 12:45 to 2:00 p.m.
• On Thursday, Dec. 11, attend the “Contextual Ads & Ad Sense Clinic” from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., the “Ad Copy Continuity Clinic” from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m., and “Brand & Reputation Management” from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• On Friday, Dec. 12, consider attending the “Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness” from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., and the “Advanced AdWords” workshop from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

For veteran attendees responsible for search engine optimization (SEO), here are the SES conference sessions and training workshops that I’d recommend:

• On Monday, Dec. 8, attend “Universal & Blended Search” from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., “Measuring Success in a 2.0 World” from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., “Igniting Viral Campaigns” from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., and “Semantic Search: How Will it Change Our Lives?” from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
• On Tuesday, Dec. 9, attend “Usability & SEO: Two Wins for the Price of One” from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., and “Advanced Link Building” from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 10, attend “SEO Through Blogs & Feeds” from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., “Video Search Engine Optimization” from 12:45 to 2:00 p.m., “SEO Friendly Flash” from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m., and “The Next Wave for Online Video” from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m.
• On Thursday, Dec. 11, attend “How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively with Your IT Department to Get Stuff Done” from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., “Affiliate 2.0: New Distribution Value Using Search & More” from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m., and “Black Hat, White Hat & the Best Kept Secrets to Search” from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• On Friday, Dec. 12, consider attending the “Link Building Tactics, Tools & Techniques” workshop from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., and the “Viral Marketing & Link Baiting” workshop from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Of course, veteran SES conference attendees already know how to navigate the conference agenda. They may want to check out the Issues Track on Tuesday, the Social Media Track on Wednesday, and the Local Track on Thursday. The point I’m making is there are plenty of conference sessions, strategic development workshops, keynote presentations, Orion panels, and training workshops to help them take their skills to the next level.

You’ll also see a couple of sessions “reserved for late-breaking topic.” Every year that I’ve been attending Search Engine Strategies – which goes back to the spring of 2002 – there have been unexpected developments in the search industry. So, use the optimized schedule above to get the folks in finance to approve your plans to attend. But, even I expect to be “calling audibles” when I get to SES Chicago 2008.

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