Todd Friesen of Position Tech shared some SEO tips in the Advanced SEO Strategies session: 1. Pay for links to pages (other websites) that link to you. No risk in getting burned if you get caught. 2. Don't use custom 404 pages. You'll lose any link juice pointing to those pages. Instead 301 redirect them to other relevant pages.

Rand Fishkin told Search Insider Summit attendees he realizes SEO isn't fare. The best results don't rank first. He typically hears complaints after clients look at keyword. The complaints range from "I clearly have better content," to "I'm a better and bigger brand, yet I'm ranking behind someone on Blog Spot." I'm sure no one is surprise to learn that search engines don't know how to recognize the best content. Google has no way to tell you. The only way they can tell is through links, the number of links that connect to your content. Great content doesn't …

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz dropped some beauts on us during the Advanced SEO Strategies session: "SEO is not fair." The best site doesn't always win. "Great content doesn't build great links." You need to target the "Linkerati" to earn link love. "Unicorns fart glitter." Yeah, you had to be here to get that one.

How do you find the ROI in online campaigns when all the credit goes to the last click? Esco Strong, Group Manager for Market Research at Microsoft, wants you to remind you that the first online click is just as valuable as the last, "so why do we attribute the sale to the last?" Using the last click standard is flawed because you're loosing all the data that happened prior that led to the sale. Microsoft has been touting a process called "engagement mapping," which takes into consideration quantitative and qualitative data to weigh all the clicks through the sales …

The Obama campaign has been much-lauded for its use of the Internet and Internet marketing in building its brand and generating donations. How big a part did searchâ€"the biggest sector of online advertisingâ€"play in Obama’s winning bid for Presidency of the United States? That’s the question that researchers and agency executives pondered at today’s Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah. Emily Williams, Interactive Account Executive, for MSHC Partners, which managed the Obama team’s search marketing efforts, said that search was “a huge, huge part” of the campaign’s list-building strategy, in particular. “At times we found we couldn’t ramp …

MediaPost's Search Insider Summit kicked off in Park City Utah Thursday morning with a town hall meeting to discuss the online strategy of the Barack Obama campaign. Gordon Hotchkiss, CEO and president of Enguiro, led three panelists and conference attendees in a lively discussion on how search helped Obama win the presidential campaign. Panelists included Emily Williams, Interactive account executive MSHC (who worked on the online campaign early on); Ben Sesllia, senior director of analytics at Clickable; and Corina Constantin director of decision services at Didit Labs. Williams, who worked on the online campaign for Obama early on, …

In today's opening session, Gord Hotchkiss moderated a discussion about the Obama campaign's approach to search. The word "hope" came up a lot (early buzz-o-meter leader) in the context of Obama's message. But Emily Williams of MSHC -- the agency that managed Obama's online advertising -- shared that the real strategy

Once again, the Search Insider Summit is upon us. And, once again, the winter edition brings us to Park City, Utah. Refresh yourself on the top buzzwords from the last SIS (Captiva Island) with my 2part column. Here's the Dec. '07 Park CityMay '07 Bonita SpringsNov. '06 Palm Springs