http://www.mediapost.com/publications/ Experts talk Google, Yahoo, Bing, SEO, SEM and everything in-between. en-us Copyright 2009 MediaPost Communications http://www.mediapost.com/rss Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:12:07 EST We are closing in on the end of 2009, and if this year is anything like years past (Q4 2008 aside), we should soon see advertisers asking for advice on smart ways to spend incremental budgets before year-end. If you are a retailer, you'll have no problem identifying qualified search marketing opportunities for incremental spending. But for advertisers in most other categories, the economics and scale for search marketing in the holiday period are not necessarily improved. For some categories like travel, for example, the fourth quarter is a seasonally weak time period. If your search campaign is fully scaled, what are the next most efficient opportunities you can explore? http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116961Matt Greitzer <>Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:45:17 ESTIn just under one month, we'll be gathering on the frosty ski hills of Park City, Utah for the Search Insider Summit. Between now and then, I'll give you a sneak preview of some of the main topic areas we'll be tackling in the meeting rooms of the Silver Lake Chateau. Today: How do you sell search to the C-Suite? http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116849Gord Hotchkiss <>Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:58:01 ESTOK, kids. Class is back in session. Once again, we're studying business lessons learned from Google. As you'll recall, last time we covered these five Google-isms: 1. Innovate or die. 2. Automate or die. 3. Tap the long tail. 4. Keep your head in the cloud. 5. Don't scare users. Today, we'll discuss numbers six through eight. So get those pens and papers ready... http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116769Aaron Goldman <>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:45:28 ESTHow many times has a client come to you and said, "I want a campaign that's going to go viral!"? If I had a nickel... I'm not knocking the desire for a campaign to go viral. It's just that, well, it's kind of stating the obvious. It's like saying, "I want my business to be really successful!" or "I want a product that people are going to love!" The critical question is, what makes viral viral? http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116662Kaila Colbin <>Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:57 ESTNobody's arguing that SEM (both in its paid and organic subspecialties) can deliver ROI. But viewing ROI as a primary and exclusive goal for your organization's search campaigns is dangerously myopic. Here's why. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116585Steve Baldwin <>Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:15:36 ESTLast week I had a very interesting phone call with the Department of Justice and the Washington State Attorney General's office. It was all part of the ongoing investigation into the pending Yahoo/Microsoft deal. For about 90 minutes a handful of lawyers asked me what I thought of the deal and how SEO worked from the agency side and from the client side. It was a very intense 90 minutes that forced me to really think through this whole deal for several days prior to the call. I think it's a terrible idea that will be really bad for everybody except Microsoft. Funny how Microsoft is involved in a deal like that, eh? http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116506Todd Friesen <>Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:16:02 ESTA few years ago, I interviewed usability expert Jakob Nielsen about where search might go in the future. He shared an interesting insight:"I think there is a tendency now for a lot of not very useful results to be dredged up that happen to be very popular, like Wikipedia and various blogs. They're not going to be very useful or substantial to people who are trying to solve problems." http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116345Gord Hotchkiss <>Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:31:52 ESTLast week, both Bing and Google announced that they have made deals with Twitter to access and utilize data in their mainstream results. These deals are significant events, in the sense that a real human social layer is now in play with crawler-based algorithms. So in addition to my long string of recent blog posts about real-time social search, here are some additional thoughts on what these deals mean to searchers, marketers, and the advancement of search and social as a whole. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116320Rob Garner <>Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:00:40 ESTWe've all been there. You go to a party at someone's house. The owner of the home has lovingly arranged the living room, dusting off all her old folding chairs and setting up a variety of cozy nooks to foster heart-to-heart chats. And yet, for some reason, nobody wants to hang out there. Instead, they're all in the kitchen: close to the beer, the sink, and the top-up of guacamole. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116217Kaila Colbin <>Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:45:24 ESTThis was surprising to me: when I picked up the new Dan Brown book (well, actually, downloaded it to the Kindle app on my iPhone), and began reading, a central plot point emerged involving a keyword search. A keyword search. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116077Derek Gordon <>Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:45:05 EST