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Local search site Citysearch has launched an application for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Citysearch is touting the following features for the app:

• Search nearby destinations: food, bars, spas, shops and hotels
• Search listings by keyword, category and location and map the results
• Review listing details: address, phone, maps & directions, photos, hours of operation and more
• Submit user reviews instantly, without a lengthy registration process
• View previous searches & recently viewed listings
• Browse editorial recommendations, user reviews and advice from business owners
• Featured write-ups on what’s hot in a local neighborhood or city
• Sort results by key listing attributes including distance, cost and Citysearch rating
• Bookmark your favorite listings

Unfortunately, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. The top listing for Food using My Location is a catering business based out of a nearby home. Another listing is an independent coffee shop that no longer exists.

Shopping was worse. The top results didn’t include anything from nearby Brier Creek, a very popular shopping area in North Raleigh where I live.

The app looks fantastic. I like the dark background and light colors that don’t make my eyes strain. But hopefully Citysearch will improve its results to make the app more useful.

Related Reading:
Citysearch Rebuilds Site with a More Social, Local and Mobile
MapQuest Partners with Citysearch for Comprehensive Search Results

All week long, I’ve been reporting on the top 10 stories from each day of Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008. Generally, they were generated by news coverage of the three keynotes and two Orion Panels, or interviews with speakers at the 63 conference sessions. Hey, that’s just fishing where the fish are.

But there were a couple of other places where I found underreported stories from SES Chicago 2008: SES Magazine, the Expo Hall, the free mini clinics, and the search training workshops.

If you didn’t attend Search Engine Strategies Chicago this year, find someone who did. And “borrow” his or her copy of SES Magazine. There is a lot of content in there – beyond the conference information.

For example, there’s an article by Kate Kaye, senior editor of ClickZ News, entitled “Politics 2.0: Political Change Comes to Search, Too.” It looks at the search marketing tactics that Chicago’s own Barack Obama and his rivals used during the 2008 presidential electiion. My favorite underreported story is how the campaigns employed search to take advantage of hot topics right away.

If you can’t find someone with a copy of SES Magazine, then check out the interview below with Kate, which appeared back in June.

Obama Ads Online: Search Advertising Analysis by Kate Kaye

Meanwhile, over at booth #315 in the Expo Hall, ideaLaunch was giving demos of WordVision, its new SEO software tool that uses a complex algorithm to recommend hot keywords to SEO writers. Yes, that got my attention. And once this content is uploaded to a website, it tracks the contents’ impact on search engine listings so that SEO managers can understand the overall ROI of content assets. Yes, that got my attention, too.

But wait! There’s More!

Over at booth #204, there were a series of free mini clinics. Tim Ash, the President of SiteTuners, ran one called, “Your Baby Is Ugly - Landing Page Mini-Critiques.” David Szetela, the CEO of Clix Marketing, ran another called, “Power PPC Advertising Clinic.” Jonathan Mendez, Founder and CEO of RAMP Digital, ran a third called, “ CPA Optimization Station.” And Brad Geddes, Founder of bgTheory.com, ran a fourth called, “Ad Copy to Landing Page Review.”

In fact, check out what Kurt Scholle, Head Coach of WebAsylum.com, wrote about them at Website-ROI-Guy:
– I Met a Rockstar at Search Engine Strategies/Chicago
– Your Baby Is Ugly - Landing Page Mini-Critiques (SES Chicago)

Okay, so maybe the mini clinics weren’t as underreported as SES Magazine and the Expo Hall stories. But it doesn’t hurt to overreport them, does it?

Finally, there are the six search training workshops, which will be held on Friday, Dec. 12 at the Chicago Hilton. These include:

Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness — Analytics are a gold mine of information, just waiting to be uncovered. The results of campaigns, effectiveness of the website, and the efficiency of your rankings can all be measured with a good analytics program. Unfortunately, many site managers do not make changes to the website without prior measurement, nor do they measure after the changes. As a result, there are many changes to sites that are not based on facts, merely assumptions. Similarly, if changes are not analyzed, then there can be no clear understanding of whether or not improvements made a difference on the site or to the bottom line.

Viral Marketing & Link Baiting — Attendees will gain a better understanding of the concepts, ideas and implementations that are required to launch a viral marketing or link baiting campaign. They will learn why the Internet has created a unique environment that allows for rapid, inexpensive word of mouth marketing and how they can harness that environment to promote their own products and services. The workshop will give real life examples of both good and bad viral marketing campaigns and will share insight on how your business can capitalize on your competitor’s viral disasters. This workshop will also focus on how you can make use of consumer generated media environments like social media outlets, blog marketing, discussion forums and more to both monitor and expand your company’s online persona. Consumer generated media (the very core of viral marketing) is the fastest growing form of media online today. It’s only a matter of time until someone online talks about your business. This course will not only help prepare you in the ways to respond to the conversation, it will help you learn how to shape that conversation to your advantage.

Link Building Tactics, Tools & Techniques — Need links? In order to rank well and successfully promote your online business, you need an effective link building program as part of your overall SEO strategy. This link building workshop will help you to better understand and manage your link building campaigns by providing you with the knowledge to create proven, practical and creative link marketing campaigns. You’ll walk away understanding why you need certain links, how to find them, and how to effectively use links to promote your brand and your search engines rankings.

Advanced AdWords – This session is broken down into two sections. The first section examines how to effectively use keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and the search and content networks to effectively reach your target audience based upon where consumers are in the buying cycle. The second section will examine different bidding strategies you can employ to maximize your campaign’s goals.

Search Engine Optimization Workshop — A search-engine friendly Web site is a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers. In order for a site to be search-engine friendly, it must meet the terms and conditions set forth by the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, Ask, etc). Additionally, the site must satisfy the needs of site visitors. Ultimately, the site must be profitable for the Web site owner. Can a single site satisfy all of these groups? This workshop will demonstrate that these skills are essential for building a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers.

Optimizing for Universal Search — Universal search changes everything! The advent of Google’s Universal Search has been called “the most radical change to its search results ever.” So, how do you take advantage of Google’s new approach that blends listings from news, maps, video, and image search among those it gathers from web search? This training session will help you get found in all the right places.

The full-day training session is $1,345 and half-day is $745. Register for SES SEM Training at http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/chicago/training.html.

Now, I realize that the search training workshops haven’t even been held yet. So, it may be premature to call them underreported. But trust me on this. Most of the journalists and bloggers who covered SES Chicago 2008 this week have already headed home. So, I’m pretty confident predicting that this, too, will be one of the underreported stories from the conference and expo.

Hey, I could be wrong. As Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

You don’t need to read most of the 10 top stories from Day 4 of SES Chicago 2008. You can watch them. In fact, one of the photos that I hope someone took the week was the battery of online video crews interviewing speakers between sessions.

The rest of the coverage from the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest was provided by online journalists and bloggers. In fact, the “dog that didn’t bark” at Search Engine Strategies was the print media. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but the Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy this week. And earlier this month, PC Magazine decided to go “all digital.”

I don’t know about you, but I think I saw the future of journalism this past week – and it was already “all digital.”

Personalizing Video Analytics for Campaign Success - Interview with Omniture’s CEO Josh James
ReelSEO’s Contributing Reporter Erika Blackwell interviewed Josh James, CEO and Co-Founder of the online analytics and business optimization firm Omniture. Erika spoke with Josh after his keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Avoiding the Chasm of “Anticipointment, and asked him, is it possible to do a video ad campaign that offers personalized, relevant online experience for each visitor, and how could it be tracked?

SES Chicago: Profitable Opportunities for CPG Marketers
Abby Johnson of the WebProNews Video Blog interviewed Eli Goodman, Search Evangelist for ComScore, who says 73% of searchers are now becoming more specific with their search queries and are looking for information and help. She adds, “Although these observations strengthen a paid strategy, comScore is seeing a shift in traffic to social media enhancers such as Yahoo! Answers, Google Blogger, and About.com.

Paid Links: A Black Hat/White Hat Discussion
Kevin Newcomb of Search Engine Watch writes, “Those expecting a knock-down, drag-out brawl at the ‘Black Hat/White Hat’ session at SES Chicago may have left a bit disappointed. It looked like the sparks could fly, with Dave Naylor, director of search marketing at Bronco, and Todd Friesen, VP of search at Position Technologies there representing the black hat side, and Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting and Doug Heil, owner of ihelpyou there defending the white hat side. But, as Friesen so eloquently said, ‘As it turns out, Doug’s actually a nice guy.’”

Gary Stein on Battle of the Browsers
I interviewed Gary Stein, the Director of Strategy at Ammo Marketing, who elaborates on search engine data analysis after the heated SES Chicago Orion Panel “Battle of the Browsers- Personalization or Privacy.”

SES Chicago: SEO Through Blogs and Feeds
Lee Odden of the Online Marketing Blog writes, “Yesterday I presented at SES Chicago in a session on SEO Through Blogs and Feeds with Stephan Spencer and Sally Falkow. I went first and presented the slideshow embedded below, a presentation in two parts:
1. Why blogs created solely for SEO purposes will inevitably fail.
2. Tips on how to create a successfully optimized company blog that will last.”

Lawrence Lessig at SES Chicago 2008
Sage Lewis of SageRock.com talks about Lawrence Lessig, a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig, who was the opening keynote speaker at SES Chicago, is also a founding board member of Creative Commons. According to Sage, Lessig “sheds some really provocative insight into the world of copywrite and how it is negatively affecting today’s culture.”

Blogging To Build Buzz About Your Business
Mike Sachoff of WebProNews writes, “While blogs are now considered mainstream with more businesses using them to get their message out, just how are they building buzz online? The SES session ‘Blogging For Business’ has the answers.”

SES Chicago 2008: Sally Falkow and Shari Thurow
Sally Falkow of ExpansionPlus and Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive discuss content syndication, link development, and news search optimization at the 2008 Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo in Chicago.

YouTube’s Guitar Hero
Anna Maria Virzi of ClickZ writes, “As a marketer, what YouTube video do you wish you had dreamed up? I posed that question to participants of the SES Chicago panel, ‘The Next Wave for Online Video,’ which I moderated yesterday. Gregory Markel, founder/president, Infuse Creative, pointed to this one featuring JerryC, which has 55 million page views and counting. It’s snagged the number-two spot on Google’s search engine results page for the search term ‘guitar,’ appearing higher than Gibson, Fender, and Guitar Hero.”

Jordan Kasteler: PocketCam Interview at SES
Manny Rivas of the aimClear Blog writes, “Yesterday at SES Chicago 2008 I met up with Jordan Kasteler a.k.a Utah SEO Pro. Not one to miss a cool opportunity, I whipped out my pocketCam to ask him a few questions. At age 26, Jordan has made quite a name in the search community and consistently contributes valuable content and thought-leadership that can’t be overlooked.”

Dipchand “Deep” Nishar is leaving Google to join social network LinkedIn. He will become Vice President of Products for the career and professional oriented social network.

While at Google, Nishar contributed to mobile efforts and most recently oversaw product development for Asia-Pacific.

Nishar is the latest of a string of Googlers leaving to join startups or build their own companies. While the current economy makes this a risky move, LinkedIn is one of the few startups bucking the trend. In fact, if you’re one of the many finding yourself “in between jobs” right now, LinkedIn is a great place to network.

Related Reading:
LinkedIn’s New Search Platform Goes Live
LinkedIn Combines Social and Search in New Events Feature
LinkedIn Launches Market Research Survey Service

Times are tough, but you can weather this economic downturn by taking advantage of some remarkable opportunities for those willing to think outside the box. In today’s online promotion & linkbuilding column, “Look for SEO Opportunities in these Dire Economic Times,” Justilien Gaspard shows you some ways to be poised to outrank your competition when the economy turns around.

» Full story

Today’s list of top ten stories from SES Chicago 2008 is just a small sample of all the news and commentary that’s coming out of Day 3 of the conference and expo. I’m sure that you will see more coverage rolling out over the next week.

But for those of you who couldn’t attend because your travel budget was cut because of the recession, here’s a quick summary of the search engine marketing tips and SEO tools that – ironically – could help your company weather the downturn in the economy better than your competitors:

The Rich Are Different Than…
Anna Maria Virzi of ClickZ writes, “An examination into the online behavior of the most affluent or ‘upper crust’ people was an eye-opener for Bill Tancer, Hitwise general manager. He shared this following anecdote during the SES Chicago keynote on Tuesday to make the point that online marketers have access to information that can inform marketing strategies.”

Bill Tancer on Search Patterns in 2008
I interviewed Bill Tancer, the General Manager of Hitwise and author of the best-selling book, “Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters,” following his morning keynote presentation. I asked Bill to elaborate on some of the search engine user behavior he saw in 2008 and forecast what patterns we might see in 2009.

SEM Tips For Small Businesses
Mike Sachoff of WebProNews covered the the “SEM Small Business Blitz” session the speakers focused on how to use social media in an affordable and practical way.

Lawrence Lessig on Copyright Laws
Stanford Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, who gave the opening keynote at SES Chicago 2008 on Monday, talks about the problems and shortcomings of current copyright laws and discusses solutions on how to revise copyright laws to end the war on prohibition and build on a new hybrid economy.

I Drool, You Drool, We all Drool for New Tools
Manny Rivas of the AimClear Blog writes, “Take time to research the overwhelmingly huge list of SEO tools out there, and you’ll quickly see there are hundreds (if not thousands), all sorting the very same data. Some cost arms, legs and sometimes skin off the back, but many are appendage-friendly (free). This SES Chicago session, succinctly titled ‘SEO Tools,’ was moderated by Sage Lewis, Search Engine Watch Expert & President of SageRock.com.”

Live Blogging Day 3 at SES Chicago
Jeff Woelker of Written By All Of Us, a Slack Barshinger Blog, was back at it for day 3 at SES Chicago. He writes, “Hope you’ve been enjoying the last two days.”

Interview with Amanda Watlington on Podcast & Audio Search Optimization
Shana Albert of Social Desire writes, “Right now SES Chicago is going on….. the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest. I had the good fortune of being able to interview Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit…. She was on the panel of the Podcast & Audio Search Optimization session. Here is my interview with Amanda.”

Sally Falkow at SES Chicago 2008 with Matthew Bailey
Sally Falkow of ExpansionPlus interviewed Matthew Bailey of SiteLogic about social media measurement, content strategy, and search engine optimization (SEO) at the 2008 Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo in Chicago (SESChicago08).

A Special Message to the Ladies Attending SES Chicago: Woman to Woman
Nathania Johnson of Search Engine Watch has this observation about women at SES Chicago: “I see you at the keynotes. I see you at the sessions. I see you in the expo hall during the day. But at night, when I go to the networking cocktails, it’s a testosterone festival.”

So you stopped your banner ad campaigns a long time ago because the click through rate sucks and the conversion rate was even worse?

The problem is - you might be leaving money on the table.

In a couple sessions at SES, I’ve been hearing about how banner ads can drive people to search. So while they may not be clicking on your display ads and converting off of them, they may send people to a search engine to find your product or service.

What you’ll want to do is set up the banner ad and then watch your analytics to see if you have increased searches and if those searches are related to the banner ad. You’ll want to take all of that into consideration when creating your landing page, bidding on keywords in paid search, and writing the paid search ad.

The only caveat I would add is to place your display ads carefully. Social network users have said they don’t find the ads targeted to them, so other content networks may prove more successful.

Related Reading
Microsoft Top Display Advertiser for June 2008
Online Publishers Turning to Ad Networks to Sell Unused Inventory
AdBrite Adds CPC Option for Banner Ads
Google AdWords Display Ad Builder Gets Four Updates
Q Interactive Launches Display Ad Network with Predictive Behavioral Targeting

Google has made Friend Connect available to all webmasters in a beta form. Friend Connect lets sites add social networking to their site. But users can sign in with an established account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID, instead of creating yet another account.

Here’s a vid with more details

Google Friend Connect was announced in May and made available as a preview release.

Social search engine OneRiot has a new Director of Search Technology and it’s Alessio Signorini, former Director of Technology at Ask.com. While at Ask.com, Signorini oversaw natural language processing, ranking optimizations, and query classifications.

“It’s testament to the work we’re doing that someone as talented as Alessio has joined our team,” said Kimbal Musk, OneRiot CEO. “His experience and expertise will help us continuously improve our efforts to enable users to find the pulse of the web.”

“OneRiot is unique in its ability to help users find the pulse of the web — to find the news, videos and products that people are talking about right now,” said Alessio. “OneRiot is a very attractive search company. I can’t wait to get started!”

Related Reading:
Expedia Chooses Baynote Social Search to Improve Site Usability
Social Search Site Scour Now Speedier (Say That 10 Times Fast)
Google Xooglers Launch Social Search Engine Mechanical Zoo
Social Search: Welcome to the World of Socialommerce
Mahalo Adds New Social Search Tools

It’s no secret that social networks have had a difficult time integrating advertising that has a bang for its buck. IDC has released some data showing what social networks - and advertisers - are faced with.

Only 57% of social network users have clicked on an ad in the last year versus 79% of all users in the rest of the web.

When it comes to purchasing, only 11% of social network users will actually make one compared to 23% of the rest of the internet.

“The thinking has been that the popularity of SNS will attract a big audience and generate a lot of traffic, which in turn will produce enormous amounts of user-generated content (UGC) and therefore advertising inventory – without any expenses for editorial staff or content distribution deals,” said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Marketplace: Media and Advertising. “All of the above has proven true – except that almost invariably, SNS have had a hard time selling this inventory.”

Related Reading:
The Number of Small Businesses Using Social Media to Double in 12 Months
MySpace Launches Self-Service Ad Platform
93% of Americans Expect Companies to Have Social Media Presence