Organic Search & Paid Search: Are They Synergistic Or Cannibalistic?
One aspect to search marketing that I feel doesn’t get enough attention and indeed is misunderstood by the seo practitioner is the interaction between organic search and paid search.
For years when teaching seo workshops, I touted the synergistic effect of being at the top of both organic and paid results. I would encourage attendees to [...]
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Google Waves Goodbye to Conference Twittering
I still have no clue how to use Google Wave. Not that I’m stupid, I’m just not motivated to invest the tremendous effort needed to learn the new interface–especially when not all of my friends have invites yet.
Still, it helps to see a real-world use of Google Wave–at a conference no less. Instead of using Twitter–and hashtags–attendees at the recent Ecomm conference were given Google Wave accounts. The resulting collaboration gives me a better feel for at least one practical use of the new service.
Take a look:
Of course, I see one immediate problem. Where’s the opinion? What I love about conference Tweets–and blog posts–is reading the opinion that’s thrown in with the coverage. The above Google Wave example seems just a little too sterile for my liking.
Anyhow, I’d better get on the Google Wave soon because, apparently, Google has aspirations of taking the Google Wave "look and feel" and making it uniform across all of its apps.
Don’t Forget the Trackur PubCon Social
Before you jump on that plane to PubCon, don’t forget to make a note in your calendar to attend the Trackur PubCon Social.
Here are the details:
Where: ENVY Lounge located at the Renaissance Hotel–next door to the convention center.
When: Wednesday November 11th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.
What: Beer, wine and snacks.
Who: All PubCon attendees.
Why: Because you are awesome!
Make a note in your calendar, share it on Twitter, and please join me on the 11th!
NOTE: Space is limited, so get there early!
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Don’t Miss Trackur’s PubCon Social
Whether you’re one of the 11,500+ that have registered a Trackur account, or one of the many that have helped spread the word about Trackur’s affordable social media monitoring plans, I want to thank you!
Actually, I want to do more than just thank you. I want to invite you to a special cocktail reception that Trackur’s hosting at PubCon this year. It’s a chance for you to learn about Trackur, network, and enjoy free drinks and snacks!
Here are the details:
Where: ENVY Lounge located at the Renaissance Hotel–next door to the convention center.
When: Wednesday November 11th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.
What: Beer, wine and snacks.
Who: All PubCon attendees.
Why: Because you are awesome!
Make a note in your calendar, share it on Twitter, and please join me on the 11th!
Google Now Lets You Strip Parameters from URLs
Two years ago, Yahoo heard requests from SMX Advanced attendees and added a Dynamic URL Rewriting feature to Yahoo Site Explorer, allowing webmasters to remove parameters from URLs, like session IDs, that might create duplicate content issues or otherwise confuse search engines. Now Google’s finally catching up. As Exoogler Vanessa Fox reports at search Engine Land, Google has added a feature to strip parameters from URLs to its Webmaster Tools.
With extra parameters, search engines can index the same content under multiple URLs, which may split link equity. Vanessa also mentions that indexing parameters can hurt crawl efficiency as well as display and branding.
Seven months ago, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (at the time) signed on to create a canonical URL tag, to indicate what URL is the “correct” version, without parameters. In her article, Vanessa compares these and several other methods of eliminating search engine performance interference from parameters—and each has its drawbacks. The new Webmaster Tools option, for example, might be used to accidentally close off portions of your site to search engines, and only works for Google.
On the other hand, although the canonical URL tag requires the page to be crawled before it can be indexed, and might thus cost a little in initial crawl efficiency, for most cases, it will probably be the easiest to implement and most universal solution. Like the Webmaster Tools option, it can be done incorrectly (Vanessa says some sites accidentally indicate the canonical URL for each page on the site is the home page). Currently, she says, Google is the only search engine actively using the tag anyway—so at present, the universal benefit is moot.
What do you think? Will you use Webmaster Tools to strip parameters from your URL, the canonical tag, 301 redirects, or another method? Or do you see little harm from extra parameters in your URL?
Twitter Conferences Are In
As part of the Internet marketing industry have you done the conference circuit? Have you been to SES, SMX (put cardinal direction here), Adtech, PubCon etc, etc? On a yearly basis how many of these trips can you justify or get away with? Well, with shrinking budgets everywhere now you have to add the new spate of Twitter conferences to your hit list of things you absolutely have to do to get out of the office learn more about the industry.
TechCrunch tells us of the growing list of conferences that are starting to sprout up as a result of the use of (or confusion around the use of) Twitter for business purposes.
It looks like the trend of Twitter conferences is growing, with more events popping up around the country. As we’ve said in the past and will continue to say, there are tremendous opportunities for businesses, brands, non-profits and individuals to use Twitter as a tool for customer support, fund raising, brand management, advertising, job search and much more.
I have not attended one but I can imagine they must be pretty quiet because everyone is likely to be talking to everyone but those right in front of them. I gotta tell ya that when someone tweets that they are talking to someone I wonder if they are even listening to them or concentrating on their 140 characters of brilliance they are allowing the rest of their audience to ingest.
Of course, if you attended the 140 Character Conference in New York in June the venue itself (which was literally underground) forced Twitterheads to actually listen to others since there was practically no connectivity for the attendees.
Twitter is so fascinating in that it appears that so many folks are finding ways to monetize the service without the service monetizing itself. At least with Google (which face it, is why most of these conferences exist in the first place) makes money and knows that these conferences will only help it make more.
So if you are tired of the usual shows and you need more opportunities to ‘network’ then think about these:
- TWTRCN 09 DC- for non profits and government types. October 22 in Washington, DC.
- 140 Twitter Conference / LA – Endorsed by Biz Stone. Need we say more? September in Los Angeles (for those who didn’t get the LA part of the title).
- 140 Characters Twitter Conference – Jeff Pulver’s deal goes west coast on October 27th in Los Angeles.
- Cool Twitter Conferences- Apparently this is a traveling road show that has stops scheduled in Boston and San Francisco.
So don’t miss your chance to blow off work get out and learn more about Twitter and the future of communications. Hotel bars in the areas of these meetings can’t wait to serve you!
Danny Sullivan’s Preview Of Search Engine Land’s SMX East 2009 Search Marketing Conference In New York
In five weeks, our SMX East search marketing conference arrives in New York City from Oct. 5-7. The show features four to five tracks of sessions spread across three days and covers all aspects of search marketing. Below is a personal tour from me on what attendees can expect.
Our SMX Advanced [...]
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Can Bing Change The Culture Of Online Search?
I was in Seattle for the SMX Advanced conference last month, which coincided with the Bing release announcement by Microsoft. The Microsoft booth got a good amount of attention from the attendees, most of whom were eager to see just what this Bing thing could do.
A large flat screen monitor was mounted on the booth [...]
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SMN Webcast August 4: Andrew Goodman On PPC Campaign Automation
Next Tuesday, August 4 at 1 PM EDT, Search Marketing Now presents a webcast with Andrew Goodman on “PPC Campaign Automation: Bid Management, Alerts…the Works!” Not only will attendees benefit from Andrew’s PPC expertise—but three lucky attendees will win an Acquisio tee-shirt at the end of the webcast (and yes, you have to be [...]
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Facebook Working to Amp Up Ad Opps
Facebook has been a little quiet as of late. Apparently if you aren’t a search engine moving in on the flagship product of your sworn enemy or you’re not the media darling with apparently little or no security in your fiefdom it’s just not news.
Well, it looks like Facebook has been keeping their heads down and their noses clean and doing something that they have deemed pretty important; finding ways to make money. The Inside Facebook blog tells of three new additions to the ad network offering that make it easier for advertisers to target folks within Facebook. These additions come on the heels of some other improvements that are almost flying under the radar but the numbers are starting to show some progress. Considering that these actions are around actually doing business it’s a breath of fresh air as compared to the speculation and drama that is in the Internet industry news.
The recent spate of enhancements to Facebook Ads is continuing today with several new ways to target Facebook ad campaigns. Last week, Facebook turned on time scheduling, and this weekend, ad editing. Today, it’s enabling three new features: connection targeting, multiple country targeting, and birthday targeting.
Here’s a quick summary of three new enhancements
Connection Targeting
This allows advertisers to hit specific groups within their network of connections. This targeting allows an advertiser to directly put ads in front of fans of any of their pages, users of any of their applications, members of any of their groups and attendees of any of their events.
Basically, Facebook wants to make it easy for business and brands to increase engagement with any users they’re connected to on Facebook through Facebook Ads, using it as a paid notification or cross-promotion channel. You can also target users who are connected to one of your Pages/Groups/Apps/Events but not to another in order to do more specific cross-promotions.
Multiple Country Targeting
Now rather than having to create individual ads for each country, advertisers can now create one ad for up to 25 countries so the benefits of this offering are obvious.
Birthday Targeting
While I don’t pay much attention to my own birthday, many folks on Facebook really do. Facebook sees that and is allowing advertisers to target these folks at a time that they may be so giddy that they’ll buy something.
The expectation is that Facebook is going to be adding enhancements pretty rapidly in the near future. When you have over 200 million ‘members’ it can be incredibly powerful to slice that group into more and more targeted segments so advertisers will have success without breaking the bank. Should be interesting to watch. Remember that $500 million in revenue number that was floating around recently? There will need to be innovation to get there and maybe Facebook gets it.
