• Vacationing 'On the Grid'
    It's 5 a.m. in Kauai. I'm sitting on the lanai of our condo, writing this in the glow from my laptop. I'll continue to work on various things until about 8 a.m., when I'll try to swim some lengths in the pool and then see what else my wife and daughters have planned for the day. Every so often I'll check emails to see if there's anything urgent that has to be responded to. The rest I'll file away until tomorrow, when again I'll get up at 5 a.m. I'm not jockeying for leadership in the holiday martyr's club, I'm …
  • Conference: Focus On Content Creation
    Social's impact on SEO is huge, and is now concrete in its ties to SEO, with the adoption of social signals in Bing and Google. The bottom line, though, is that in the near future, search will still be much of what we're currently used to: constantly reapplying the basics of SEO. Content, content, content. Earning links, instead of begging for them.
  • Which Blog Platform Is Best For SEO?
    Corporate blogging is a necessity in Google's post-Caffeine world. Let's face it: Blogs tend to get a little more Google love. I once did a random test and found that Google was indexing blog posts from my site in under one minute. But which blog platform should you choose for the best SEO result?
  • Beware: More Search Regulation Could Be Coming
    One of the more contentious issues in the search marketing universe is the practice of bidding on the trademarked keywords of a competitor. While the issue has been largely settled for now -- it is legal to bid on keywords that include a competitor's brand name, but not to use a competitor's trademark in the ad copy -- regulators are still trying to find ways to hem in search marketing tactics.
  • Are Search Marketers Afraid to Adopt Digital Media Attribution?
    I was on a great panel at the OMMA Behavioral conference in New York on Tuesday titled "Is Display the New Search?" During the wide-ranging conversation, a recurring theme from the display folks in the room was that search marketers have long taken too much credit for an online sale just because paid search clicks are usually the last click of the purchase cycle. Why isn't attribution more widely adopted?<
  • The View From Haleakala
    On the island of Maui, Haleakala is a dormant volcano that climbs 10,000 feet above sea level. When you visit Maui (I'm writing this column from the lanai of our rented condo in Kihei) you're told, repeatedly, that you have to see sunrise from Haleakala. This is not an undertaking for the faint of heart. It means bundling up. Hawaiian breezes become significantly colder at 10,000 ft. It also means dragging yourself out of bed at an ungodly hour to drive an hour and a half up a winding mountain road in the dark. But the view, should you make …
  • Googling My Kids
    A few weeks ago I became a father for the second and third time... yep, twins! As I think about all the milestones that lay ahead, the digital marketer in me can't help but think about all the ways technology will influence the lives of my kids. And that's when the feeling of dread takes over.
  • Are You Leaving Money On The Table With Your Landing Pages?
    I often speak at conferences on the topic of landing page optimization, and I'm glad to say that I see more and more people interested each year in how to improve their landing pages for pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Landing page optimization (or LPO) has been a growing field over the past few years, with more designers and tools popping up every day.<
  • New Census Data Require Assumption Shifts
    I was on the bus the other day, on my way into downtown San Francisco, and two young white guys were talking next to me. As they spoke, they used more than a few Spanish words -- though highly Anglicized -- in their casual conversation. It surprised me a little, only because their use of language didn't conform to what I assumed I would hear from them. When I told a friend of mine who teaches Spanish at a private high school here, he said the use of Spanglish is now fairly mainstream and is the result of both …
  • The Value & Definition Of Search
    Usually in this column I write about various trends, evolutions, and other factors driving our industry forward. These usually are focused on consumer and advertiser implications. Today, let's flesh out the definition and value of search to an agency.
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