45 Online Resources for CEO's

Ten years ago, building a website was a no brainer. “Build it and they will come,” was the general consensus. You left the technical details to your IT department; the promotional details were handed off to marketing.

Today, this is no longer an option. If you’re a CEO, you must be involved in your company’s online strategies if you plan to stay ahead of your competition. And by being involved, this means understanding the fundamentals of the Web and keeping up with all of the changes taking place online.

I hope you find this list of resources useful.

Business Blogging - Reading and Writing

1. RSS in plain English
If you don’t know what RSS is, watch this video (3 minutes, 44 seconds) for a simple explanation in plain English.

2. The Best 10 RSS Readers for Windows, Mac, and Linux
Determining which reader to use can be difficult; take a look at these descriptions of ten of the best.

3. RSSFwd
If you’re still uncomfortable reading via a feed reader, why not begin by getting blog posts delivered to you via e-mail. RSSFwd delivers RSS feeds straight to your inbox.

4. EFF: Legal Guide for Bloggers
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created this guide to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger.

5. Basic Business Blogging Suggestions
To create an authoritative and trusted blog, consider these 12 recommendations.

6. Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
Not only are there basic guidelines on how to do it right, you also need to understand what to avoid when blogging. Take a look at these 15 mistakes to avoid.

7. The Opportunities and Challenges of Corporate, Team, and Personal Blogs
Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang describes the pros and cons of the three main types of blogs.

8. Blog Topics for Business to Business
If you’re unsure what to blog about, consider these seven ideas to put get the creative juices going.

Social Media - Learn and Use

9. Your Social Media Strategy Begins With Monitoring
Before you can launch a successful social media strategy, consider monitoring existing conversations about your company.

10. List of Social Media and Social Networking Sites by Industry
A regularly updated list of over 400 sites, listed by categories that include: arts, bookmarking, auto, connecting with friends, consumer reviews, cooking, cultures, dating, education, event planning, family, games, fashion, health, networking, kids, Internet marketing, mobile, music, news, pets, photo sharing, pop culture, professional, real estate, religion, shopping, sport, technology, teen, travel, video sharing.

11. Social Media Press Release Template (free of copyright)
If your marketing department is planning to send out social media releases, give them this template to begin with.

12. Essential Guide to Social Media (Free e-book)
An overview of how to listen and participate in social media and new media marketing.

13. Social Media Networking and ROI
Gain insight into the goals and benefits of social networking, the challenges, and understand into how to best maximize your social networking efficiency.

14. Press Release Grader
HubSpots Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score; helping you create better and smarter press releases.

SEO and SEM - Visibility That's Relevant

15. Factors Affecting Your Search Engine Compatibility
This is a basic and useful resource detailing the common elements that affect your search engine ranking.

16. SEO Jargon Busters – A Comprehensive SEO Dictionary
Commonly refered to SEO terms, explained in English.

17. The Definitive List of Resources for Keyword Analysis
Your site won’t get search engine traffic without using keywords. As the CEO, make sure you are involved in this critical step.

18. Linkbuilding: 22 Dofollow Social Media sites
If your marketing department is not working on getting links to your site; or doesn’t know how to do it without being penalized by Google, point this article out to them.

19. Pay Per Click: The basics of Paid Advertising
Make sure you understand paid advertising; after all, you’re paying for it. Read this to get the basics down.

20. Best Practices for Pay-Per-Action Campaigns
Understand pay-per-action campaigns and best practices with Google’s start guide to Pay-per-action campaigns.

21. Google’s Conversion University
Free online resources from Google that include videos and tutorials, to help you understand search, marketing, and how your company fits in.

22. Google’s AdWords Learning Center
Another offering from Google; free training to sharpen your knowledge of AdWords.

Brand Marketing

23. A Practical Guide to Branding
From Business Week: Understand and define your brand identity—your product’s ‘personality’—before you spend money on advertising or marketing.

24. Word of Mouth Manual
This free e-book is available to download as a PDF. Alternatively, buy the book on Amazon ($45).

25. Brand Personality
Guy Kawasaki interviews Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargava where they talk about the role of ‘personality’ in branding.

26. How’s your Rep? Online Reputation Management
When a potential customer searches for your firm on the Internet, you want to be in control of what they see on their first search engine results page.

27. Protect Your Brand Online
Everything you need to know about monitoring and managing your online reputation. eBook ($39).

28. Free Tools to Monitor Your Online Presence
Take a look at these nine free online tools to monitor conversations about you on the Web.

Free Online Courses

29. Entrepreneurship and Business (Carnegie Mellon)

30. Open Source and Distribution of Digital Information (UC Berkeley)

31. Understanding Computers and the Internet (Harvard)

32. The Future of the Internet (Stanford)

Reports About the Internet - Trends and Stats

33. Forrester: Consumer Technographics data
Understanding the impact of technology and the Internet on your business.

34. Comscore: Key Measurements of the Digital World
Comscore covers today’s hottest business trends, with key measurements of the digital world.

35. Internet World Statistics
The latest data about Internet users worldwide.

36. Top US sites from Quantcast
Rankings for sites in the US; how many visitors, and type of visitor.

37. The Future of Media (video)
A panel discussion on the Future of Media, with journalists David Carr of NY Times, Keith Kelly of NY Post, Kenneth Li of Reuters, and Johnnie Roberts of Newsweek and Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch.

38. User Generated Content, Social Media and Advertising—An Overview (PDF)
In 2008, if you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the Internet. A report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Top 10 Management Blogs You Should Subscribe To:

39. David Kellog, CEO
Mark Logic, Inc.

40. Joel Spolsky, CEO
Fog Creek Software

41. John Mackey, CEO
Whole Foods

42. Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director
Garage Technology Ventures, founder of Truemors and Alltop

43. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

44. Mark Cuban, Owner
Dallas Mavericks

45. Craig Newmark, CEO
Craigslist

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hope we can start a conversation about what CEO’s most need to know about the online world.

Please let me know your opinions and suggestions by leaving a comment below; questions too are welcome.

If you liked this post, consider bookmarking it at Delicious for future reference, or vote on it at StumbleUpon by clicking on the respective link below.

How to be an SEO Rock Star - by Lidija Davis

Lidija Davis (WebMama Web Strategist) equates Rock Stardom in the Search Visibility world with keeping up in the social media world. Really an amazingly clear look at what should now be basics in SEO.

How to be an SEO Rock Star
By: Lidija Davis
June 2008
Visibility Magazine

BIO:

Lidija Davis is the Web Strategist for WebMama.com Inc. WebMama.com Inc. is Silicon Valley's premier search engine marketing company providing SEO and SEM services to corporations around the world. Lidija is also the Silicon Valley Correspondent for Tech Talk Radio Australia and runs her own blog at http://blog-well.com

Lidija's First Page Digg and Technorati Information Articles Include:
100+ Useful Web Resources for Small Business and Non Profits
100+ Resources for Web Developers

Edicts of Search Engine Marketing - WebMama Learnings

There are some things that are always constant in the world of search engine optimization and marketing. My team and I remind ourselves of these edicts when we are approached by a potential client. If the potential client does not accept these truths, we don't work with them.

Business Expectations:

1. Search Engines change their algorithms all the time.
2. A business CANNOT survive by relying solely on Google to rank them highest in organic results (see #1).
3. It is about Conversion not ranking (see #2).

SEO Tactics:

4. The fundamentals of SEO never change, they just adapt to new media.
5. Never leave it up to a search engine to decide what is important on your site, tell them through internal linking, tags and content.
6. Do NOT expect anything to happen overnight even if you use sitemaps.

Paid Search Tactics:

7. If you need to own a category then bid higher (#3 may need to be ignored).
8. Control your affiliates with changes to their written contracts, not just threats.
9. Automated bid management systems are not the best way to manage #7.

A final thought, encourage your clients to educate themselves on the world of search marketing through courses, respected blogs and conferences, not forums.

Graduated Search Marketers at eMetrics San Francisco?

I love Jim Sterne. He comes up with the most fun sessions for his eMetrics conferences! I will be on a session called Serious Search. In our cap and gowns a few us will provide the audience with the top 3 things we learned in graduate school and open the floor to discussions about - well - search analytics. eMetrics is THE educational conference for advanced web analytics people with a great focus on teaching the basics of managing paid search marketing. May 5-7 in San Francisco. He saved the best for last - come hang out with us on Wednesday May 7th.

SA-6 Wednesday, 1:30 - 2:30
Serious Search - Graduate Level

Barbara Coll, WebMama.com Inc.
Gary Angel, Semphonic
Michael Stebbins, Market Motive

You’ve read the books, you track the blogs, you’ve got most of your search marketing in hand and are doing a pretty good job of it. Now it’s time to take it to the next level. Find out what Gary, Michael and Barbara learned in 30 years of combined experience in search and analytics. They have definitely matriculated and are ready to outline where things are going next with online search. Come learn from the graduates.

Dana Todd and The WebMama Working Together

Dana Todd and WebMama.com are joining forces to provide WebMama.com clients and prospects with exciting (some would say explosive) insights into the future of marketing. Dana and I are both well known in the world of internet/online/web marketing and have been search marketing visionaries and disturbers of the peace for at least 10 years each. Both are founders of SEMPO. Both have been Presidents and Chairs for the organization. Dana has the reddest hair and WebMama is one of the most recognizable brand names in the industry. What a team!

Dana's forward-thinking into direct marketing and brand marketing strategies will provide my company with opportunities to discuss with the C-Suite the value of search marketing as an integral part of all marketing strategies and programs. For the prospects and clients who can handle the phenomenal, out-of-the-box ideas and the fast-paced presentation style of Dana Todd, there will be great rewards in helping their company navigate the ever changing world of search and web marketing.

In addition, Dana will be working with the WebMama team to increase their knowledge of a broader range of marketing strategies and tactics based on Dana's experiences with SiteLab. Dana has also announced her involvement in start-up NewsForce, working as CMO.

Can you imagine the two of us together in front of companies like HP, Guthy-Renker and VMware? Can you imagine the two of us ever letting the clients get a word in edgewise!!!??

The Definitive List of Resources for Keyword Analysis

Determining what keywords to use for optimizing a website is the first step in the SEO process isn’t easy. Here the WebMama team gives you our list of sources for information for this critical stage in all Search Engine Marketing projects. Hope they help make you more successful.

Tools

1. WordTracker [info , free trial]
2. Google AdWords [tool – no account required]
3. Google Trends [tool – relative volume analysis]
4. MSN Keyword Focus [tool - volume analysis]
5. MSN Keyword Group Detection [tool – no account required]
6. Keyword Discovery [info – free trial]
7. Thesaurus
8. Overture [tool – times out regularly]
9. Answers.com

Informational Online Sources

Inside the Client Properties

10. Corporate Blogs
11. Blog Tags
12. Press Releases
13. Current website content
14. Marketing creatives for banners, etc
15. Email campaign content
16. Personas developed for the site

Outside the Client Properties

17. Industry forums
18. Product/Service reviews (and comments)
19. Online magazines
20. Competition’s sites and marketing campaigns
21. Relevant social media group discussions

Non-Online Sources

22. TV ads
23. Radio copy
24. Print ads
25. Focus groups “what would you put in a search box to find our products and/or services”
26. Magazines/newspapers
27. Video advertising
28. Other forms of marketing, especially those of competitors
29. Sales training materials

Data Sources

30. Paid search statistics from all campaigns
31. Organic traffic statistics
32. Internal site search

People in the Company

33. Executives
34. Product Managers
35. Web Developers
36. Web Producers
37. User Interface Designers
38. Customer Experience team
39. Direct Sales
40. Inside Sales
41. Call Center
42. Customer Service
43. Content writers
44. Marketing brand managers
45. ‘whomever hired us’

Use your source information, filter it through the VCR edict that all keywords need to be a balance of Volume, Conversion and Relevancy, and the result will be the right keywords for optimizing your website and increasing visibility and converting traffic to your website.

This list is available in a Word document called KeywordResourceList.doc should you want to spread the word.

Google Filling in Forms - security risks & marketing disaster

Seriously this is scary. Matt Cutts talked about Google filling in forms to get at more data. From an SEO point of view it is unnecessary - if the site owner wants stuff indexed they should make it available. WebMama's clients are all directed this way.

From all other points of view I see this as a real problem.

1. Marketing uses forms all the time to capture lead information. And they measure it. Let’s say Google tries to ‘fill out’ the form and get to the inside information once a day for a month. That is 30 hits on the form that were completed but did not convert. Kind of messes with the data.

2. No matter what they say would you, as a security/risk manager, be satisfied that Google isn’t going to try and ‘guess’ the login or password just because the button or form element has something familiar on it like ‘password’. A lot of personal information (aka healthcare) and business information (aka intranet access) lie behind forms.

3. What if the form is about gathering demographic information. I am not sure that the demographics of a search engine or the demographics of some bot with keywords that are randomly chosen is information an advertiser is trying to capture.

“So now we get GoogleBot instead of Donald Duck as the false name on our forms.”

Google Sitelinks - Observations and Recommendations

Ellen Ferlazzo, WebMama.com Content Optimization Specialist, on Google Sitelinks:

Barb recently asked me to take another look at sitelinks, those links on Google search results below your main entry. Sitelinks are now appearing in the SERPs for smaller sites as well as larger ones.

How do you get sitelinks to show up?

You seem most likely to get sitelinks when users search for your branded term and your home page ranks #1 for that term. But while branded terms are more common, I know some sites that have sitelinks on non-branded terms. This seems to occur most often when the home page rather than an internal page is ranked #1 for that non-branded term. But I have also seen internal pages that are getting sitelinks so it’s not a hard and fast rule. I suspect the algorithms are being tweaked and tested.

As to getting sitelinks, I think the basics are still the key. Make sure you have:

• Clear navigation for the user
• Appropriate title tags, H1s, etc.
• Internal linking on or near key terms pointing to your important pages

Which pages show up in the sitelinks?

Google says the selection is totally automated. Some sitelinks pages are popular pages but others are not. They do not have to be linked to directly from the home page but all the ones I have seen are linked to quite often. Speculation is that Google is analyzing user behavior as well as site navigation to select these. One of my clients has two different sitelinks with slightly different text going to slightly different pages. I suspect one will disappear soon as it doesn’t seem very useful. Once Google has selected sitelinks for you, you can log into your Google Webmaster Tools account and block a particular page from being used as a sitelink but you do not get say in what ones should be included; you can’t even make suggestions along that line.

What text is used in the sitelinks?

Matt Cutts said Google is varying the text used in sitelinks, sometimes a bit from the page title and other times from the link text, which is certainly what I’m seeing today. For one of my clients, they’re picking up the text near a link placed underneath the Flash for those who have Flash disabled. One of their other text links exists nowhere on the home page, but it is a common call to action in one section of the site. Again though, Google is not using the actual linked text here. At one point they were picking up part of a title tag but they’ve changed that to be just part of the link text at this point.

Something else new: a new search button below sitelinks

Several of my client sites now have a search field and customized button “Search theirsite.com”) underneath their sitelinks. On one of them, Google reduced the number of sitelinks from 8 to 6. The other stayed at 8. Experimentation is definitely the name of the game at this point. [note from Barb – this box is a bad things for our clients. Searchers use the box thinking they will be sent to results inside the site, but no, they are sent to another Google page with more ads. Bad user experience and if you ask nicely, Google is taking it down.]

More blogs on sitelinks

Matt Cutts video from Nov 2007
Vanessa Fox from Nov 2007
SeoPedia FAQ from March 2008
blah,blah technology from Feb 2008

More about the Google Patent that relates to sitelinks:

From SEO By the Sea:
Google filed a patent talking about how they "might" use these. Best guesses are that Google is accessing:

* how often the page is accessed
* how long people stay on the page
* the likelihood of making a purchase there

The patent application suggests they're using toolbar-gathered info as well as general SEO practices. The patent also suggests they might eventually present personalized sitelinks based on your past behavior but this does not seem to be happening now.

How links are generated

http://searchengineland.com/070212-093435.php suggests it's mainly based on internal link structure and the popularity of internal pages.
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/8704 suggests actionable web pages get higher value (downloads, contact us, buy.) I suspect Google is trying to provide a mix of information pages and action pages.

WebMama Speaking at SES New York

I will be presenting at two business strategy sessions at SES New York next week. If you are ready to learn more about the business of search marketing, these sessions should be on your list:

B2B Tactics - 10:15-11:15 Wednesday 19th
Forget consumers. You want only the business-to-business audience! This session explores options and issues in targeting B2B.
In 2001 when I suggested this session to Danny Sullivan most B2B companies never thought any respectable IT or purchasing person would make a purchase based on a search and a click. Things have changed but not so much that you still don't have to deal with all the complexities of the sales life cycle inside B2B companies. I have written a new 15 minute presentation that talks about one of the most annoying and complex parts of 'doing' search marketing in or for B2B companies - the direct sales force.

Selling Your Integrated Plan to the C-suite - 1:00-2:15pm Wednesday 19th
You know your stuff. You get it. You have an integrated plan that is based on logic, reason and known best practices. In today's day and age it is hard to imagine the existence of old grey flannel suits with secretaries that still print out emails. Yet, there are few senior mangers who just don't get it and it's your job to convince them. What do you do? Well, you can give up or you can take it to the C-Suite. Hear from everyday practitioners who didn't give up and counted a win for everyone out there fighting the good fight.

See you there.

What is the Third SEO Question?

In previous posts I covered what the first and second questions should be when kicking off a full search engine optimization project including an seo technical audit.

First Question - What would your dream page 1 of results look like? (tip: don't promise to produce those results, yet)
Second Question - What do you want a searcher to do when they visit your site. (is it lead generation, brand awareness, page views, buy). Good Search Engine Marketing companies 'get' it that they need to understand their client's online strategy and goals.

The Third Question should be much more technical in nature because at this point you have pulled information from the marketing people about their messaging, keywords, pain points, and goals. Ask the technical team to join you, or at least stop reading their emails. Then ask them what is the underlying technology that the website is produced with. You will get answers about their content management system and hopefully the development technology. Dive deeper and ask about the file/directory architecture, the technology used to display the site (ie Flash, Java, Hidden Divs, etc), and are they in the middle of a redesign. [If they are in the middle of a redesign then the SEO audit becomes a lot more complex. More on this in a future blog.]

I forgot something, remember to ask them if they have done any SEO in the past and do they have in-house expertise. This way you know whether to look for spam tactics when doing your audit, an idea of whether you have to clean up after someone else's mess, and it helps you understand how much education may be required if the engineers are skeptical of the whole SEO-thing.

Reality Check - Social Media Advertising

I was lucky enough to moderate a panel on Social Media Advertising at the jam packed Web 2.0 Conference hosted by WebGuild Silicon Valley in Santa Clara today. The speakers were realistic and at the same time excited to talk about the opportunities for traffic generation (either through the social site or through organic search results that are an end-result of the social advertising activities) and online sales.

Cam Balzer - VP of Emerging Media for DoubleClick/Performics. Cam covered the traffic stats of sites like youtube and facebook. (Did you that 25% of Canadians have a Facebook profile? No jokes about being snowed in with nothing else to do please). He also talked about the targeting of specific people based on keywords, groups, applications of FaceBook; showing the ease of the user interface and encouraging all to try it.

Rajiv Parikh - CEO, Position2; a Search Engine Marketing company engaged in what was called 'viral' or 'buzz' marketing, now called social media advertising. He gave two excellent examples of video, facebook usage, myspace usage and article placement to help gain visibility and traffic for a site called EffinFunny. The work Position2 did for this client helped gain high rankings - above the competition - in organic search results.

Kent Lindstrom - CEO, Friendster. As one of the pioneers in social media Kent talked to the real reality of monetizing social media members. He felt that even with targeting groups or personality traits people on social networks are not there to buy. He feels the ad models are still evolving and it is worth a dabble but don't bank your company on social media advertising.

I talked about the breadth of social media sites and peer review sites that are worth at least joining or monitoring to see what how ads are being served up: Digg, Technorati, Linked In, Friendster, Facebook, etc. I mentioned the fact viral marketing (free submission of videos, articles, blog postings, etc) is extremely time consuming. Buying ads on sites such as Facebook currently has about 1/10th of the return of Google Adwords, less even than Google Adsense or other contextual networks. Still no clear answer to whether social media advertising will work for B2B companies.

It was a great session and I believe the audience walked away with lots to think about and some things to go to the office and play with. Thanks to WebGuild for a great conference.

Page Not Found (error 404): Rules of Engagement

Why aren't more people paying attention to 404s? This is a hot button of mine — not only is the fix for this cheap and easy; the cost of not doing it is high.

Open a new browser window right now and enter your domain name or that of your client's. Wait - don't hit return/enter yet, instead, add garbage characters at the end like http://www.webmama.com/errr. This simulates a visitor following a search result that points to an non-existant page. Now hit enter. What do you see? Do you see a beautiful page telling you that this URL is no longer a part of the site you wanted to see, and offers you other pointers to interesting pages on the site that are available with a touch of the finger? Or, do you see the dreaded (and ugly) ERROR 404 page served up by the browser?

While search engines catch dead pages and stop included them in their index, it takes time, sometimes up to 3 months. Why drive traffic to your site just to baffle and irritate visitors when they try to visit? There is really no excuse for an irritating and useless page when you can easily make sure that all pages that have EVER been indexed by a search engine — current or obsolete — point to a valid page on your website. All you need do is to TRAP the "Error 404s" and bring up your own tailor-made error page kindly guiding your visitors, and potential profits, right into your website. Of course, redirecting old pages to new ones is the best course of action but no one can do that consistently or completely for large sites. Or you can redirect to the home page but that doesn't return the right code to the search engines so I don't recommend it.

The Components of a Perfect Error 404 Page

While I am on my soap-box preaching about creating a custom-designed Error 404 page for your website, I think it only fair to list the components of a good error 404 page. Each component is geared toward letting a customer know where they are and helping them get to where they want to be. So, the components are:

• high-lighted links to popular pages on your Web site
• your standard navigation bar
• your look, feel & branding of the company/site
• a search box in case your links aren't what they want
  
• a friendly tone, with plain, polite language
• something that helps sell your products/services

Consider presenting them with specials, teasers or free samples/downloads. Weigh the advantages and disadvantages carefully. If they reached your error page, they wanted something from you and they are a captive audience. On the other hand, they were trying to get somewhere and are probably anxious to get there. Don’t hold them up, unless you are sure they’ll thank you for it.

Good Examples:

WebEx (WebMama client), VMware (WebMama client), BabyCenter , Hewlett-Packard (WebMama client), SpaFinder (sends visitors to an error page that doesn't look like one - certainly a valid tactic)

Bad Examples:

Amazon , WebMD (redirects to home page), Cingular (redirects to ATT Wireless which is inexcusable in its appearance - shame on them), NY Times (takes you into the member center- confusing), Zazzle (just weird)

In the WebMama Journal in November 2001 I pointed out a few bad 404 pages; believe it or not, the are still bad today. [Disclaimer: when visiting the old WebMama Journals the content may still be relevant but they have not been updated to reflect the SEM stragies and tactics of today or checked for broken links.]

Exxon, Macy's (even has an old trademark date), Nasdaq (defaults to browser error page - STILL!)

Tell me what error pages you like (and dislike).

The Blurring of Business Strategy and Search Strategy

It has been a wild ride being in the search marketing business for over 10 years. Part of the success of WebMama.com has been the razor sharp focus on Search Engine Marketing and nothing but SEM. This certainly gets the company in the door. Once in the door things change and I find myself talking business strategy even if it is thinly veiled as search marketing strategy.

Examples: Helping (insisting) a client decide on a list of keywords to use for search optimization is in essence asking the client what is it that generates sales on your site. Asking pointed questions like, 'what is a lead?' touches on their key online strategy and not just direct marketing. Bringing up subjects like 'metrics' and tools, profit margins, etc really forces them to think through entire areas of reporting. And I can't think of anything more important in business beyond sales then what is the image they want to convey to the public.

Is Search Marketing unique in this way; that it touches on Business Strategy often? I don't think so, but it is something clients don't necessarily expect from their SEM agency. So keep saying things like, 'but my opinions stem from the search point of view', and you will stay undercover as a business strategist.

8 Google Sitelinks Live for WebMama Clients

All WebMama.com SEO clients now have 8 Google sitelinks showing in results for the search results on their brand name. This is an increase from 4 max sitelinks. [my previous blog post explains more.]

A few examples:

VMware -
HP - (notice the amazingly wonderful links included here that weren't before like printing and multifunction and PCs)
Without effective internal linking and putting important keywords in your link text and their respective filenames - you aren't going to get these kind of results. You will end up with something like this even with the Google update.

Hope your new links help increase traffic.

WebMama Team Members Speaking at Web Builder 2.0

Three of the WebMama.com team members are speaking at Thunder Lizards' Web Builder 2.0. As many of you know I run a virtual company. Many of my team work for other companies or as independent consultants. They are a critical part of my ability to deliver the stellar results we have to date. Thunder Lizard conferences play a big role in my career as their conference in Orlando, or was it Monterey in 1999, was the first time I spoke on stage about search marketing. I believe I was replacing a stranded Eric Ward.

Lance Loveday and I have been working together since 1999. It was then he brought me into HP as a consultant to set up their first Search Engine Marketing programs. [see WebMama History] And now Lance is CEO of this own company, Closed Loop Marketing, and lead on the SEM work we do for HP. He will be presenting on the following:

Browsing to Buying: Designing for Conversion
Pleasing Users and Search Engines Alike: Balancing Design, Usability and SEO
Getting Found: Search Engine Optimization Strategies

Sandra Niehaus is an expert on usability and conversion. She and Lance recently penned a book on the subject that she is speaking on at the conference:

Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers

Amy Greer joined Lance recently and will be speaking on the following:

Harnessing the Power of RSS

And the conference is in Las Vegas where I am sure they will all have a great time. Best of luck team.

Amanda Evans Joins WebMama.com Team

I am thrilled to say that Amanda Evans has joined the WebMama.com team. For years and years (starting in 1999) I have wanted to work for Amanda when she was heading up search marketing for HP Shopping. And now Amanda will work for me and take her years of experience to WebMama clients. Quite the full circle. She will be a senior consultant for some existing clients - Verisign and Teleflora - and looking for another challenge like Wes has with Vonage.

Amanda's Bio: Prior to joining Webmama.com, Amanda Evans spent 7 years with Hewlett Packard Company developing and managing the company's search engine marketing strategy and campaigns. She was also responsible for loyalty marketing and interactive advertising for hpshopping.com, HP's consumer e-commerce division. In addition to her time at HP, Amanda has also held online marketing positions at internet startup, Zazzle.com and PC manufacturer Acer.

Amanda holds an M.B.A from San Jose State University and a B.S.C. from Santa Clara University

Video on Search Marketing Tools from Searchnomics Conference

A video of my session on Search Engine Marketing Tools from the Searchnomics Conference. I hope they invite me back next year as this was an excellent forum. [But do I ever wish I did my hair differently.]

Barbara Coll, WebMama.com Inc. Video of Session
Session Description: A panel discussion on using tools for search engine marketing. More and more you see the offer of search engine marketing solutions for managing PPC buys. Those solutions are primarily a set of tools for keyword analysis, keyword expansion and bid management. This panel will cover three aspects of 'tools': automated systems, a hands-on service model and outsourcing. Come hear the panelists debate the relative merits of their chosen method of managing search engine marketing campaigns.

World Travels - WebMama on the Road

I am sure a few (2?) noticed that I hadn't posted to this blog for a few weeks. I have been traveling - a lot. Through Quebec, at the cottage outside Ottawa, Washington DC, through Pecs, Sopron, Balaton in Hungary. We are now in Budapest and heading on the 4 th leg of our trip tomorrow - south-west Ireland. An amazing vacation made possible by the excellence and committment of my team, and the virtual nature of .dot com company management.

Internet access has been there quite readily when I needed it. {and thanks to two new clients - Vonage and Teleflora and the increasing activity of current clients VMware and Verisign - I needed it.} But it has been a PAIN phoning outside of Hungary. T-Mobile owns the market here and is very, very inconsistent in providing telephone service, through my cell phone, to US and Canada. It is interesting to see Google in action from another country. I am right now writing this blog entry in a Hungarian user interface - IP sniffing is not just for AdWords and google.com it appears.

I still read My Yahoo! home page with all the industry RSS feeds regularly and am happy to see the industry ticking along as usual. I will be jumping back in, with both feet, on the 20th when SES starts.

Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Tools Presentations

You will find the following two presentations on my website:

SES Latino - Successful Site Architecture (ppt) - my standard pitch on making your website search friendly by adhering to some basic development and design guidelines that DON'T change. In this version of the talk, I address the method of sending all URLs to the search engines for review (it DOES NOT guarantee indexing in the databases, just crawling). Check it out to learn more about Sitemaps for Google and Yahoo. (zip version)

Searchnomics - Search Engine Marketing Tools - I address search marketing tools for paid search and optimization. My twist on this subject is the belief that using automated tools is NOT a good idea for paid search marketing; that it hinders competitive and messaging advertising through search. (zip version)

It is one of my joys in life to present in front of an audience. (For those that know me this will not come as a great surprise). And sometimes I do it for the pure pleasure of seeing people in the audience smile in agreement when I tell a story of the pain of SEO.