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Ken McGaffin, the Chief Marketing Officer of Wordtracker, discusses some of the most interesting trends in keyword research at SES London 2008. This includes the movement of SEO and keyword research skills to in-house professionals, which has generated a marked increase in demand for corporate training sessions.

Ken also reveals that journalists are starting to show interest in keyword research, given the necessity of getting their stories and multimedia content found in news search engines, video search engines and web search engines.

Ken McGaffin, Wordtracker keyword research, at SES London 2008

Picking the best keywords is at the heart of any online marketing campaign. Get them right, and you’ll get remarkable increases in search engine traffic. But you don’t have to guess what the best keywords are – tools like Wordtracker will tell you.

Wordtracker collects search data – the words real people use when they do real searches online. It analyzes and count these search phrases, and give users a variety of tools to use them in creative ways to bring relevant visitors to their websites.

With Wordtracker, you can optimize your websites organically, plan effective pay-per-click campaigns, identify niche markets, generate search engine-friendly content plans, choose memorable domain names, and choose new product and publication names. Wordtracker and other keyword research tools will help you dramatically increase the number of effective keywords in your online marketing strategy.

You can find more information on keyword strategy at the Wordtracker Academy, or by visiting their booth at SES New York 2008.

Andy Weatherwax, a Partner and the Director of Search Operations at Global Strategies Intl., spoke at the Big Site, Big Search session at SES London 2008, which looked at the problems and solutions unique to those running big sites or from big companies and brands.

I interviewed Andy about the session, which tackled tough questions like: “How do you cope with doing search engine optimization for a company with tens of divisions, hundreds of products, thousands of web pages and seemingly no way to bring order to the chaos?” and “Where do you begin with the SEO process?”

Andrew Weatherwax Global Strategies Intl. at SES London 2008

If you don’t know him yet, Andy Weatherwax is a founding partner of Global Strategies International (GSI) and has served as embedded search consultant on accounts including Nokia, BP, Cisco and Kodak. A specialist in the area of enterprise CMS configuration and Consumer Intent Modeling, he is currently working with clients and their agencies to leverage search in the marketing mix.

Prior to Global Strategies, Andy was owner of BrainBug Internet Marketing, an award winning digital marketing consultancy providing online marketing strategy for clients including MetLife, Konica Minolta, Pfizer, WebMD and Priceline. In 2003, he was contracted by Position Technologies to develop the user experience design for Yahoo/Overture Site Match and Site Match Exchange.

A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Andy has been involved in online marketing since 1995. He has been the recipient of many prestigious awards for digital design including the Codie Award.

When he is not working, Andy can be found off-shore sailing or playing music. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz Studies from the Hartt School of Music.

You can view other video interviews from SES London 2008 at the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo channel on YouTube.

ComScore did what Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and Digg only dreamed of.

ComScore killed the search engine star.

ComScore data on Google paid clicks rocked the world this week. The proprietary comScore qSearch report was analyzed to death by Wall St. analysts and media pundits. Data: summarized and judged; Google, convicted, flogged and sentenced to an early demise.

It wasn’t hit and run, though: comScore’s SVP of Media and Search, James Lamberti, and CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Magid Abraham delve deep into the data to correct the rush to judgment in the marketplace. It’s a must-read. Great analysis; surprisingly lifeless title: “Why Google’s surprising paid click data are less surprising.”

It should’ve been “Data doesn’t kill Google, people do.”

QSearch showed a 7 percent decline in January ‘08 vs. December ‘07. Paid click annual growth? Flat for Google.

Month-over-month the number of paid clicks per search on Google dropped by 8 percent (December ‘07 to January ‘08). Consumers clicking less on search ads? Maybe. A weaker buying appetite?

Google’s share price took a hit and rebounded. Reports of Google’s early demise? Greatly exaggerated. That doesn’t mean the momentum-driven Google shares won’t take a hit if Google fails to impress the Street this quarter.

Wall St. analysts - looking for clues where Google gives no guidance - had accomplices: mainstream media and bloggers hoping for a Google stumble.

No one wants to miss the Hindenburg. The only problem? The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly when Google news goes viral.

The Google backlash reared its ugly head and this time it wasn’t just Valleywag.

LendingTree whose multimillion dollar paid search campaigns are managed by search marketing firm Efficient Frontier, made public its new online marketing strategy: cutting back on PPC or paid search.

LendingTree spokesperson Allison Vail was quoted in CNET News.com by Stefanie Olsen.

“With the Fed changes in January, we were driving natural traffic. It’s smarter for us,” said Vail.

Our readers know it’s always smart to optimize for natural search. I’m not sure anecdotal evidence from a financial services pure play in the throes of a global subprime mortgage crisis proves paid search revenues are declining.

Statistics from search marketing firms, though, would lend credence to the argument.

For average CPC (Cost Per Click) by industry vertical (Financial Services, Mortgage, Credit, Auto), click here.

Efficient Frontier Chairman Ellen Siminoff, chairman told CNET that paid search advertising spendi in financial services has typically risen between 30 percent and 50 percent annually.

So far this year it’s either flat or down for some companies. credit and mortgage advertisers raised their spending by 24 percent, but this year, their spending has risen only 3 percent year over year, according to Efficient Frontier data.

Coming soon: Efficient Frontier / Search Engine Watch Average CPC data for February.

Be the first investment banker or hedge fund manager on your block to see the stats.

TIPS on Online Marketing Strategy, Small Business Lead Generation
There is a lot of heated debate around at the moment about whether or not it’s worth spending money on Search Engine Optimisa…
More: continued here
search engine optimisation does it generate sales leadsRate this: 2.5

TIPS on Online Marketing Strategy, Small Business Lead Generation
There is a lot of heated debate around at the moment about whether or not it’s worth spending money on Search Engine Optimisa…
More: continued here
search engine optimisation does it generate sales leadsRate this: 2.5

What is search engine optimization? Many businesses, when they p…
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an online marketing strategy search engine optimizationRate this: 2.5

Millions of dollars are spent annually by companies whose online marketing strategy includes reaching out to attract new customers via e-mail shots, rich media advertising, pay-per-click and even old-fashioned banner advertising. But there is another class of marketer who is spending significantly l…
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