Hood River Tweetup

BONUS
(I’ll share 3 Twitter tips I learned at Online Marketing Summit this week from @randfishkin @kentlewis and @kschnepp) Email me at lisa@mediafortemarketing.com for tips if you can’t make it

Online Marketing Summit comes to Portland

Join 4000 of your peers in 16 cities for the OMS Whistle Stop Tour to share ideas, get educated and hear from online marketing experts.

Monday June 29th
Hotel Monaco
506 S.W. Washington at Fifth Avenue, Portland, OR

Topics range from seo for big brands, PPC, local marketing, email marketing and more…

Here are just a few of the top-notch speakers at the one-day event:

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
Laura Lippey, Yahoo
Jeanniey Mullen, CMO Zinio, Founder of Email Experience Council
Eric Peterson, CEO, Web Analytics De-Mystified
Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOMoz
Steve Gelen, Internet Strategy Forum
Anne Kennedy, Founder, Beyond Ink and Joblr.net
Patrick Neeman,CEO, Usability Counts

Check out this recommended session

SEMpdx Presents 6 Pack: 12 SEM Tips You Can’t Live Without

A rapid fire session where you’ll walk away with AT LEAST 12 actionable search engine marketing tips. The session will cover everything from SEO & PR, on-page SEO, linking strategies, social media optimization tips, local SEO tips and more.

Ben Lloyd, Amplify Interactive
Hallie Janssen, Anvil Media, Inc.
Kent Schnepp, EngineWorks
Lisa Williams, Media Forte Marketing
Scott Hendison, SearchCommander
David Mihm, GetListed.org

I’ll be addressing link tactics and content development tips.

Sign up today and use discount code SEMPDX20.

The 3 pillars of search, site architecure/content/link building, all need to be done well to achieve SEM goals. Link building is time consuming and guidelines and results can be nebulous. SEO professionals even admit to the painful nature of link building, here are just a few quotes attesting to the finicky nature of link building:

Link Building is…

“Like swimming through raw sewage with your mouth open” Ian Lurie

“Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it’s still the trump card for higher rankings.” Aaron Wall

“Like picking up a girl” Todd Malicoat

“A little like kissing your sister” Anonymous

“Like losing weight, there are no short cuts” Gyutae Park

“Like trying to get a date. If you are desperate, nobody respectable will be interested, but if you relax and behave nicely, you’ll have plenty of success.”

Vertical Measures is promoting a competition until June 15th asking the question – why does your business deserve link building?

Boost Your Juice

Tell them by submitting a brief (200 word or less) essay or (3 minute or less) video, and they’ll boost the juice for a First and Second prize winner! Submit by June 15th for a chance to win $5000 (1st place) or $1000 (2nd place) of link building services from Vertical Measures.

Sign up for blog catalog.

SMX Advanced Wrap Up

Having attended the inaugural SMX Advanced a couple years ago, I could tell this was going to be a different show. Sans newbie SEO’s (God love ya;) and business community looking to understand and leverage SEO, this show was created to serve the needs of the SEO professional. It’s now my favorite of the search marketing conferences for a few reasons:

The on-the-prowl marketer in all of us is a little subdued. We’re not here as much for client acquisition as we are for knowledge. It makes us a little less competitive and a little more cooperative.

It brings the best of the best. Having attended my first SES (Search Engine Strategies) Conference in San Jose in 2001, I’ve seen the industry go through a lot of changes. From little known web tactic to full blown, kick ass, best ROI of all the marketing disciplines when done correctly. This is big business. Agencies are managing Fortune 500 accounts and hundreds of millions of dollars in campaigns, paid and natural. That kind of upside tends to bring a lot of talent.

Speaking to some of the speakers and attendees and learning about their business process is exciting. As an industry we’re developing protocol and expectation for real business infrastructure.

Search Marketers are a lot of fun. There’s a sense of passion, excitement and urgency for search marketers. This isn’t a “wait and see” industry. The strategies and tactics you used 5 years ago don’t always continue to drive results. SEO’s are forced to embrace the strategies that support the algorithm today and be prepared for changes tomorrow.

Matt Cutts, a lead engineer at Google, answered questions at the show during a You & A session and I’m always surprised at the number of people who want to change the rules, game the guidelines, pimp the position and they get angry when they realize that a truth of the algorithm has evolved. It’s a part of the job, don’t get too comfortable or reliant on a single strategy. Good SEO is many things done well, if you’re doing it right your dynasty won’t crash with a change in the algorithm. Google’s job is to provide the best possible search result for a query. Play to that and there’s really no reason to get huffy.

Though we’re competitive, we’re great sharers of information. I’m always inspired by the level of comraderie between search marketers. I serve on the SEMpdx (Search Engine Marketing Professionals of Portland, Oregon) Board with some of the brightest SEO’s in the business. they are one of my best sources of intel as well as being great fun.

Launch Parties Are Fun. Microsoft launched their new “decision engine”, Bing.com at SMX with a fabulous party. Great venue, fun product demo, great staff, classy drinks and great schwag, I love my “I Bing. You Bing?” T-shirt;)

SMX Advanced is where you hear it first. This ain’t your mama’s search conference. Frankly, Seo/Sem is still a relatively new industry. You hear a lot of stuff from people trying to get in on the search train. I actually had a respectable marketer I know tell me they’re doing WordPress blogs because they’re the coolest new thing. Wow, WP is cool but it’s been around for a long time. The big value for marketers as well as the business community is that search marketing waits for no man and things change quickly and the only way to keep up to speed is through education. That said, one of the better sources for education is SMX Advanced. So next year, pony up the $1,600 and get educated, you might even get a cool T-Shirt;)

Cats are fiendishly complicated to manage, they eat when they want, sleep when they want, come and go as they please. A cat is going to do what it wants, when it wants and there’s precious little you can do to change that. Feed them, shelter them, love them, buy those ridiculous mouse on a string toys to entertain them, get them a scratching post (which they may or may not use) and be enormously available to them for their every need. And they may or may not give you the time of day.

Search Marketing isn’t entirely like that, but it’s close. Learn best practices, implement the right site architecture, spend time developing great content, participate in online communities through social marketing, provide exceptional site performance all so Google will pay attention, and they will if it’s done right…sometimes. And what worked last quarter, may not be what works this quarter.

It’s the equivalent of setting out a can of tuna when the cat is gone, “I value you you so much, I’m willing to set out a $1.75 can of white albacore to entice you to quit being a bitch and come home where you can do me the favor of keeping you from getting eaten by the coyote waiting for you by the barn.” That usually works, then one day, “F#%& you, don’t care about tuna, what else you got?” A little different from Google, but note the parallels.

In the middle of a fairly difficult move, the cats decided to run off for the day. You contemplate what to do, leave the door open, set out food, drive to the old house, set a familiar article next to the front door, walk around in the rain for hours hoping to catch a glimpse of the cats which you imagine are wet and frightened, feeling out of sorts from the new change. In a bit of resignation you decide to go out to dinner and resume the search when you return. At which point, they emerge. Frightened, wet, tired? No, DeeDee is taking a long leisurely nap deep in the bathroom linen closet, Herman comes strolling up after a 12 hour disappearance just in time to use the litter box, “Man that was a big adventure, I’d have stayed out longer but I really needed to take a crap”. What an ass. Yet here you are relieved and filled with gratitude that these demanding, careless little furballs are home safely. No rhyme or reason as to why they’ve gone or where they’ve been.

So it’s going great, you’re executing on the well-researched search marketing strategy, all internal pages and products are humming along, ranking and performing just as planned and all the sudden, 2 weeks into the busy season the top trafficked phrase with ranking to the home page drops off the face of the planet, for no apparent reason. Site performance is up, no big pricing changes in the industry, no new competition, nothing unexpected, it’s just gone. So you go about setting out the tuna, not the Bumble Bee, but the really good stuff they get only by smacking baby dolphins in the head, sure it’s bad, but you’ll try almost anything at this point. Stand out in the rain, forego other activities in the hope of gaining the placement that helps make quarterly goals. Then in exasperation, you go to something else. Your heart sinks, a sense of dejected defeat washes over you. Then you check dashboards the next day, and there it is. The ranking you need, hate and love all at the same time. The bitch is back.

This week’s InnoTech Conference (The Business & Technology Innovation Conference and Expo) at the Oregon Convention Center April 22-23 boasts a wide range of Technical and Web Topics including IT issues, Local Search, Blogging, Enterprise Search and Mobile Search: (see Sessions At a Glance).

MEDIA forte marketing, will be paneling a Hot Seat Site Reviews session with Hallie Janssen, Anvil Media, Kent Schnepp, EngineWorks and Scott Hendison, Search Commander. These sessions are a great way to take SEO/SEM best practices and apply them to live sites.

Another “Don’t Miss” is David Mihm’s “Local Search Marketing Strategies“. David, GetListed.org, shares strategies for maximizing exposure in local Google and Yahoo listings.

The SoMe (social media) Awards is a newcomer to the line up and and honors the area’s top social marketing campaigns. Also on the Social Media front, Rahaf Harfoush, New Media Strategist, Member of Obama’s Social Media Team, & Associate Director of the Global Cooperation Initiative at the World Economic Forum will present at the InnoTech Keynote Lunch on Thursday, April 23, 2009 (register here). Unique opportunity to hear, first hand, from a member of the social media campaign that redefined politics.

If you’re at the Expo, come visit our SEMpdx Booth and learn more about becoming a member of one of the best search marketing organizations in the country.

In it’s 6th year, InnoTech agenda and speakers keep getting better. Don’t miss it!

Twitter has received a great deal of publicity in the last couple of weeks, leaving those who don’t subscribe to “TechCrunch” to wonder, “how can I use Twitter?”

So here is a list of ways I’ve used Twitter in the last week

Got recommendation on a Sauvignon Blanc to pair with a dish I was preparing from @rperro

Used Twitter Search to find out about my daughter’s choir tour in London, connected with program organizer in Prescott, @davidlrattigan

Got reminder about local Gorge Angel Conference deadline from @BFashing

Initiated review from top blogger @garyvee

Learned about singer, Madeleine Peyroux from @toddmintz

Learned about a product, live video tours of real estate properties, for new client from @hometours

Learned about legislation I may not have read in mainstream news @fratel

Figured out technical search issue and analytics issue with recommendation from mentors @dannysullivan, @portentint

How can you use Twitter?

Go to search.twitter.com, enter a search query, read tweets from influencers, get involved in that conversation and add value by contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way.

Don’t take my word for it, create a Twitter profile, use it and let me know what you think.

Happy Tweeting!

If you want great resources for search marketing, follow me on Twitter @mediafortemktg

After months of hard work from our SEMpdx team, SearchFest 09 launched their 3rd Annual event. It was, in a word, awesome.

Though there is so much to discuss since the show was such a hit, here are

Eight Things I Didn’t Expect from SearchFest 09

SEMpdx Brought In the Biggest Names in The Business

Todd Mintz, Kent Lewis and David Mihm were pivotal in bringing in the top guns in all the search areas discussed, Social Marketing, Technical SEO, PR, Online Reputation Management, WordPress and Blogging, etc. We had big names as well as the big three (Google, Yahoo, MSN).

Danny Sullivan Keynoted

Danny Sullivan, the Godfather of search, keynoted about the perception of search and helped create some potential new language for the industry to create clarity about the depth of search. Terms recommended included Technical SEO, speaking to the technical and site architecture side of search and Content SEO, speaking to the content development side of search. I’ve heard Danny speak several times and I thought it was great that he actually asked our membership what they’d like to learn from his keynote and he addressed those questions and issues. Didn’t surprise me that he’s such a classy, thoughtful guy, but that, even as busy as he is, he took the time to address SEMpdx membership questions.

We Sold Out

Okay, we knew it was going to be a big show, but we were being fairly ambitious, especially in this economic climate, way to go Hallie Janssen and Kent Schnepp.

One of Our Panelists Was Heckled

Neil Patel is considered to be one of the first social marketers, he is a confident, enthusiastic, very talented business man. He’s also very young and cocky (title of his blog “Quick Sprout-I’m Kind of a Big Deal”) and his ideas and vision can be very cutting edge, to say the least. The heckling was fairly surprising considering the caliber of professionals at the event, but it brought up an important point. Who are these people anyway? It’s one thing to heckle if they’re just post adolescent hackers who know too much because they spend too much time in front of a computer, but Neil Patel has helped AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal. Neil is a respected author and speaker and he is, indeed, kind of a big deal.

Building and Growing your SEM Business Was a HUGE Hit

We had this track at SMX West last year and it was great and well-received, but lightly attended because it was opposite some heavy hitters. Also, SEM’s are often at shows to get knowledge about learn about implementation, so we were excited to see so many attendees prepared to learn how to run a business. Anne Kennedy, Adam Audette and Rand Fishkin comprised our panel and they, also, were against some heavy hitters (Marshall Simmonds and Derrick Wheeler) but they packed the house. Their advice about running and growing a business was great, but they took it a step further and discussed their own growth and goals so candidly and so whole-heartedly that I actual got a little vaklempt listening to them discuss their struggles (”Sometimes we had to choose who on the team got paid that month”) and their revelations (”Hire people you know and trust”) and their enormous gratitude for their mentors and family (Adam learned a great deal about the search business from his father and one of the first search marketers, John Audette). Best piece of advice expressed from every panelist “Be Skilled”.

(Check out the live blogging of the session here.)

SEMpdx Is Considered One of the Best Search Marketing Organizations in the Country

Even though he’s from Canada and works in Gig Harbor, WA, Todd Friesen of Position Tech (one of our panelists and veteran SEM) said SEMpdx is one of, if not, the best regional search marketing organizations in the country (we were drinking at the reception at Hotel deLuxe, but confirmed his opinion later;)

SEMpdx and the Search Industry Got Some Coverage for SearchFest

Marketplace and NPR’s Sadie Babits had shown early interest in the story, but it was postponed and we hope to speak with her soon;) But, KPTV covered the event (thanks to our PR power from Amy Rosenberg) and, more importantly, the impact of search on the local economy. Portland Monthly Magazine ran a piece (from none other than one of our writers, Keri Brenner) about search marketing and SearchFest. Not to mention the ton of coverage from the people we got on Twitter at #sf09

No One Wanted to Take Credit

As marketers, we love to take the limelight. We love to be on stage, we adore the sound of our own voices. But when it came to taking credit, it was hard to get a “You’re welcome”. I thanked Scott Hendison for uploading powerpoints at the last minute, he said, “Not a problem”. I thanked Mike Rosenberg for getting all our wonderful sponsors, he said, “Thank the sponsors”. I thanked Pixelsilk and our other sponsors and they said, “Thank the board”. I thanked our SEMpdx President Ben Lloyd for his great keynote introduction and guidance through the process, he said “Thank Hallie and Kent”. I thanked Hallie and Kent and they said, “Thank the awesome panelists”. I thanked the panelists, they said, “Thank the great attendees”. So thank you, to everyone who made this SearchFest our best yet.

Pixelsilk launched at SMX West last month and we’re excited to have completed their training. Here are my top 10 things I love about Pixelsilk.

1. Cost-effective for business to control their own content. Other than blogs, most business owners day to day either have off-site or in-house programmers to implement changes in content or wait to change content based on budget, limitations of their site, etc. Pixelsilk’s SEO Friendly CMS makes it simple to change site content.

2. Easy to upload videos. Video is a powerful tool, but many businesses don’t pursue this marketing tool because they’re concerned about the technical aspect of uploading videos and they’re not certain it leads to ROI. Pixelsilk easy upload makes it cost-effective to test.

3. Easy to add PDF’s and articles. Adding keyword-rich article titles and abstracts is simple in Pixelsilk. Making it easy makes it more likely that businesses will invest in rich content for their customers.

4. SEO-friendly CMS. Implementing keyword-rich, relevant content in a CMS isn’t always SEO-Friendly. Pixelsilk has worked with Bruce Clay and other SEO powerhouses to make sure that their CMS allows for the flexibility and clean coding needed for foundational SEO.

5. Easy ecommerce integration. Changes to the Pixelsilk system are reflected in Ecommerce solution product-content making sure you have a single-version-of-the-truth product catalog.

6. Easy to add new pages. Whether you’re editing current pages or adding new pages or even new navigation, the process is intuitive and xml and html site map is uploaded based on changes.

7. Easy to change navigation. Did I mention easy to change navigation? Okay I did, but I’ll say it again because, inevitably, you’ve storyboarded and wireframed to everyone’s satisfaction and once the site is live, visitors actions necessitate a change in navigation. This can cause headaches for programmers and marketers alike, but in Pixelsilk changing navigation is as easy as adding a page.

8. Best practices and stability for code. As a search marketer who invests a great deal of time understanding best practices, it’s not always possible for those to translate for even well-versed programmers. Pixelsilk code is clean and adheres to best practices so you can focus on the marketing message and SEO/SEM that brings your clients real results.

9. Easy integration of 3rd party apps. Email, event registration, site search, blogs and discussion boards are either part of the app or easily integrated through 3rd party.

10. Great team & Service. I’ve known CEO, Mark Knowles for just three years, but he and his team are sharp, hard working and enthusiastic about Pixelsilk. They approached creation of Pixelsilk from the standpoint of SEO’s so they could create a tool that’s reflective of SEO needs. So far, it looks like they’ve hit the mark.

I’ll share more about our Pixelsilk experience as we launch our site next month. Cheers

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Dude, Your Links Kinda Suck from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Great video from Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.org. I see a lot of business owners that ENORMOUSLY misunderstand linking as a search marketing strategy. All links are not created equally. Watch this video and we’ll spend time next week giving you some strategies for pursuing quality, authority links.

Cheers,
Lisa