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When you sit down to write, where do all the ideas go? Especially the ones you thought of only 15 minutes before. They went to Idea Land. Sometimes they will return, and sometimes they won’t, so you n…
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generating writing ideas

On Sunday, Web Guild spread fear around the internet by ‘exposing’ Google’s quiet layoffs, which were said to be upwards of 10,000 employees. And Google was supposedly getting away with it through secretive loopholes that only corporate lawyers know about. They were hiring workers and not paying them benefits.

Actually, those people are called independent contractors and they knowingly enter into those agreements.

Google is reducing its contractor workforce, but it’s something they’ve had planned for a long time. Of course, the timing of implementation couldn’t be worse. Especially since contractors generally don’t get unemployment benefits once terminated. Independent contractors are essentially self-employed.

Related Reading:
Google Q3 Revenue Increases 31% Year-Over-Year, Up 3% Over Q2 2008
Google Pulls the Plug on Lively

Microsoft’s adCenter is launching a new offer for Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) members: $1000 in free clicks. Campaigns created through the promotion will be placed on Live Search and the MSN portal. Those who wish to become SEMPO members to take advantage of the offer must join the organization by December 31, 2008.

“SEMPO members, both agency and corporate search marketers, represent some of the most knowledgeable and innovative search marketing leaders in the industry,” said Valerie Bolduc, senior global product marketing manager, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions, Microsoft. “Working with SEMPO provides Microsoft with the opportunity to engage and learn from the search marketing community, which enables us to enhance our products and offerings to better serve our mutual customers.”

SEMPO President Jeffrey Pruitt noted, “SEMPO’s continued growth is tied to the strong support of its sponsors. Microsoft has long been our lead sponsor and advocate on several fronts including the SEMPO Training Institute, as well as for special programs like the adCenter search advertising promotion. Our industry association greatly appreciates Microsoft’s strong commitment and ongoing participation.”

Related Reading:
SEMPO Institute to Develop Career Opportunities for Young Chicagoans
New SEMPO Chairperson Dana Todd Has Big Dreams for Organization
SEMPO Selects Officers for New Board of Directors

It is never easy to write about someone who has just passed away, especially if that person is your father. Your father is an important figure to you and writing about his life will undoubtedly feel l…
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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.

The accountability of online marketing is only as good as the analytics an advertiser employs. In today’s vertical search column, “Offline and Online Conversions Tracking: Increase Your ROI,” local search expert Gregg Stewart explains that tracking conversions — both online and offline — can be tricky, but it is an important part of any online marketing program, especially for businesses with a local presence.

» Full story

It’s easy to pick on Microsoft. It’s practically a national pastime at this point. So when they announced their Cashback program to help grow Live Search, the snears came fast and furious.

“You have to pay people to search?” they said.

Turn your laughter into claps, people. It turns out that Cashback is working. Microsoft is seeing positive results on three goals it said it would report. They are:

• Number of offers in the system
• Advertiser return on investment (ROI)
• Percentage of commercial search queries as measured by comScore

There’s been a 30% increase in the number of products offered via Cashback. 4.5 million unique users per month are generating 68 million commercial queries. eBay has seen an increase of 50% on their ROI.

“We believe this early traction speaks to the differentiated and unique value proposition of Microsoft Live Search cashback for both consumers and advertisers, especially in these tough economic times,” said Brad Goldberg, general manager of Microsoft Live Search.

Is it really any surprise that incentives work? No. Have you ever been listening to the radio and they’re having a $1,000 giveaway? You have to be listening at the right times to call in.

Incentives are nothing new. Microsoft was smart to implement them into Live Search. People don’t necessarily use Google because it’s any better but because it’s familiar. Live Search needs a way to get people searching, and Cashback is working to help accomplish those goals.

That may be why Microsoft is expanding Cashback by partnering with shopping cart providers Miva Merchant, Early Impact Inc. (ProductCart) and 3DCart. Through the agreement, merchants who use the shopping carts are eligible for Cashback.

Women are planning to spend less according to two surveys released today.

In a survey by the Marketing to Moms Coalition, moms plan to cut spending on holiday gifts. Offline is expected to be hit the hardest, with an 8% drop over last year. Online will decline by 2%.

• 87% of moms plan to shop at big discount retailers like Wal-mart and Target
• Department stores come in second at 37%.
• Shoe and specialty clothing retailers come in third at 35%.

“Older kids tend to want expensive presents like cell phones, video games, trendy clothes and computer equipment,” says Maria Bailey, a founder of the Marketing to Moms Coalition, and author of the book, Mom 3.0, Marketing with Today’s Mother by Leveraging New Media and Technology. “Moms are telling their older kids that this year, they’re just going to have to wait.”

Another survey from Frank About Women shows that women (not just moms) are planning to cut holiday spending. First on the chopping block? Themselves.

62% of women are asking friends and family to forgo buying them a gift this year due to the economy.

They asked survey participants who would be cut from the gift list that normally would be on.

• 57% of those who normally give gifts to their neighbors plan to forego the gift this year
• 53% will skip their bosses
• 52% will cut employees and service providers (i.e. hairdressers) from their list
• 50% won’t give gifts to co-workers this year

So, who is getting a gift this year?

• 96% said they won’t let a bad economy stand in the way of giving gifts to their kids
• 86% will give gifts to their parents
• 85% will give gifts to their spouse or partner (Stay out of the dog house, guys!)

“Not only are women planning to spend less on others, they are actively encouraging their friends and family to omit them from the gift list this year,” says Nicole Green, senior strategic brand planner at FAW. “This self-sacrificing mindset represents a significant cultural shift as a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility and frugality trump spending and splurging for many women. Marketers who speak to the real meaning of the holidays are more likely to resonate with women this season and benefit from their spending power.”

Related Reading:
Microsoft Study Reveals Online and Digital Behavior of Women
Mom Bloggers Prove Powerful Resource to Marketing and Branding Success
Moms See Search as Task-Oriented; Websites as Entertainment

Microsoft is attempting to pull the rug out from under Google’s talks with Verizon to be the default search engine on its mobile phones. And they’re doing so by dishing out the dough.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has a bunch of cash on hand. They’ve been using some of it to create incentive programs like Cashback and SearchPerks to essentially pay people to search.

Now, it looks like they’re willing to shell out some green by offering Verizon a larger piece of the revenue-sharing pie than Google has thus far offered.

Could this be why Google was unwilling to spend moolah on a costly court battle defending its now-defunct search advertising deal with Yahoo? Both Google and Yahoo said they could have won the suit, but Google declined to pursue it.

Could this be why Steve Ballmer is saying he’s not interested in acquiring Yahoo anymore (depsite the blue light special)?

Mobile is hot and it’s only going to get hotter. Becoming the default search engine on the largest mobile carrier in the U.S. (Verizon recently won approval for their acquisition of Alltel) is prime real estate indeed.