The end of a fun and busy summer has come, the kids are back to school and now its time to get back into the search marketing saddle. I can’t believe its been a month and half since my last post but time flies when you are having fun. Even though I took some time away from the writing on this blog the search engine news has not slowed and there has been tons of good stuff happening. I have a few things I’m working on and will post the happenings shortly.

What happens when you take a month and a half off from blogging? I’ll tell you what happens….you get axed from Online Marketing Blog’s Big List of SEM SEO Blogs! What does this mean? It means Lee and the gang at Top Rank are doing a great job maintaining the list. I had seen Lee write that they remove blogs that are not active for over a month but I was a bit curious if mimasm.com would get cut and today sure enough it got released, waived, ….. and let go. So even with that axe job, I can’t blame them for anything, all I can do is recommend the BIG LIST as a dandy resource because it is jammed packed and up to date! Way to go Lee!

Now that I’m Back in the Saddle I can’t help but think about Aerosmith’s Back in the Saddle tune. For all you that aren’t old time classic rockers, Aerosmith Rocks is a damn good album and worth listening to. Do I pull out the vinyl to catch a listen or do I do something a little more with the times like 8 track? The first thing I had to do was search The Google as George Dubya would say and see where Aerosmith’s official site comes up for the search term aerosmith back in the saddle. Aerosmith’s official site did not appear until result number 91. Yuck! So what’s the deal with that you may ask? The problem is Aerosmith puts their album history (oops, I guess the new term is discography) in a Flash app and they don’t have a lyrics page for the song. So the lesson is don’t use flash for nearly the only mention of your product!

For comparison’s sake I did a search for aerosmith’s mama kin, Mama Kin being another good tune of theirs. I didn’t see www.aerosmith.com in the first 50 results and stopped looking. I also did a Google search for bob dylan a hard rain’s a gonna fall and even with some odd and broad url changes Sony did on the site for the last album release, Dylan’s site Bob’s official site still has a page for A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall with full lyrics come up number one. Another Dylan search of bob dylan highway 61 revisited comes up number one also. I will come back to the strange url structure change going on at the Bob Dylan site with a future post, but even with the problems bobdylan.com has, it really shows how Aerosmith’s flash app cuts out a lot of traffic.

On a side note, the veeeerrrrrrry looooooong google search for aerosmith back in the saddle finally led me to an Aerosmith page that has a video of Aerosmith performing Back in the Saddle with NFL highlights (go down about a quarter way in the Aerosmith Aeromedia page). This is all quite fitting given the recent start of the 2007 NFL season but sorry Rand Fishkin, I didn’t see any Seahawks highlights in there.

Last night 10 of us interested in talking search and having a couple cold ones hung out at The Liffey in Downtown St. Paul for a few hours. Ward found us a spot up on the rooftop terrace for a perfect evening. It’s been a while since our last local search get-together and we decided we gotta do this every few months or so.

I snapped a few pictures you see in this post and also in a set at Flickr. Paul took some nice shots and Ward got a few of us on film also. Here is a list of the folks that were able to make it (around the table order, clockwise starting with Corey closest to the camera in the brown shirt).

• Corey Donovan of Vibrant Technologies and their Vibrant Blog
• Aldis Svalbe of US Bank
• Lee Odden Of TopRank and Online Marketing Blog
• Tony Tellijohn of Aware Web Solutions
• Jeff Hudson of SEM Visibility and The PPC Book
• Ward Tongen of Medtronic
• Paul Jahn of Aware Web Solutions and LocalMN
• Julie VanMersbergen of FindLaw and Between Stations
• Lisa Raehsler of Periscope, Sniffy McGees & Fun Dog Fashion
• Chris Dohman of North Rock Publishing & MIMA Search Marketing

Just a quick reminder that anyone interested in talking search are invited to come to The Liffey tonight at 6:30pm. Nothing formal here, just hanging out, talking search and meeting others in the field. See you there!

Cheers!

Congrats to Chad Trent of the Finnish Gifts blog and Finn Style for correctly guessing the Online Marketing Blog in this weekends round 8 of Guess the Internet Marketing Site game. It is great to see a commerce site and blog win our game!

Chad answered a few questions about his store and thinks search marketers are perfect for a bit of Finn Style!

Q: Give us a brief intro to your Finnish Gifts blog, store and products.

Chad: We started our Finnish Design Blog about 1-1/2 years ago as a way to introduce new products and get some additional exposure on the search engines. We operate a number of websites (I won’t list them all, but FinnishGifts.com, FinnStyle.com, and GlassBirds.com are a few of them) and a retail store in Gaviidae Common, Downtown Minneapolis. Everything we sell is modern Finnish design; from glassware and furniture to jewelry and fabric and much more. Some of our most popular products are from Finnish design houses Iittala and Marimekko.

Q: How has your blog complemented your online store?

Chad: It’s really been helpful in getting new products up quickly. In addition to that, it provides another way for us to connect with potential customers. We find that many visitors come to our blog looking for information. Our site might rank higher, but they’ll go to our blog first, look around and then proceed to our website to make a purchase. In that regard, it has been a great compliment to our online store.

Q: Is there anything you are promoting of late at Finish Gifts blog or store?

Chad: We’re having a clearance sale on many popular Marimekko products - only a couple days left. I know how SEM people love to decorate their offices in bold, colorful prints, so get your order in before we run out!

Q: How were you able to guess toprankblog.com, what clue did it for you?

Chad: X-ray vision

Congrats and thanks for playing Chad!

Thanks to Lee Odden and the gang at TopRank Online Marketing blog for playing our Guess the Internet Marketing Site game every week and also laying low while we use them as an search marketing target this week. Be sure to subscribe to the TopRank Online Marketing RSS feed and read every day!

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim graciously answered a few questions I asked him after I used marketingpilgrim.com in round 5 of Guess the Marketing Site game. In this q & a Andy shares his views on personalized search and more about his popular internet marketing news site.

Q: Personalized search for the average Google user: for or against and why?

Andy: I think that personalization is a great evolution for search. With Google’s launch of Universal Search, we’re seeing search engine results that are far more relevant to the entered search query. The tough part for Google is to refine its technology to truly understand the intent of the search and at the same time not overdo it with personalization. Personalization can do more harm than good, if Google makes too many assumptions about what a user is interest in. Just because I may have previously researched car reviews for “Jaguar”, doesn’t mean that I’m not also interested in the Jacksonville Jaguars or the jungle cat!

Q: You are 8 episodes into your Marketing Pilgrim Podcast, how do you feel about it at this point? Did you consider doing a show on Webmaster Radio?

Andy: It’s tough to say what my plans are for the podcast. Podcasting is something that I’ve experimented with in the past, but never uncovered its true value. This time around, I’m finding it more useful and I’ve had some good feedback from those that have subscribed. I certainly don’t expect it to rival the readership of MarketingPilgrim.com – we have 8,000 visitors a day – but it could grow in time to be a good compliment to the blog. One main benefit is that it allows me to share more of my thoughts on marketing news – which would take far too long to type up. The down side is that I have to put the show together myself, so a 30 minute podcast takes another 45 minutes to edit and upload.

I’ve certainly considered a Webmaster Radio show and have had some early discussions with them. I like the idea of allowing listeners to call in live and ask their questions. The downside is that I would need to find time in my schedule for a regular show – which will be a challenge with all that I have going on right now.

Q: Running a news site has to be time intensive, how do you balance your time between Marketing Pilgrim and consulting?

Andy: That’s a good question and one I get asked a lot. I used to spend just an hour or so each day blogging, but now that the blog is growing fast – and we have advertisers – I actually spend half of my week working on the blog. I tend to blog between 9am and noon each day, with updates in the afternoon, if needed. I’m lucky to have a great team of contributors and fantastic assistant editor, Jordan McCollum, and they helped keep Marketing Pilgrim updated throughout the day. Consulting is a lot of fun, but I currently only dedicate 25-30 hours a month to consulting work. This allows me to work with some great clients (for example, I’m doing some cool work with SAS) and give them my best attention – something I couldn’t do if I overloaded myself with consulting work. One thing that has helped me a lot is to stick to a set schedule of consulting each week. Typically I consult on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, with the occasional onsite visit here and there.

Q: I noticed you did your most recent podcast on blogtv. I’m just watching it now. How did you like it and do you think you will do more of your casts with it?

Andy: BlogTv has been an interesting experiment for me. It’s allowed me to test live video streaming as a channel and gives me a little more interaction than a podcast. It’s certainly a lot easier to host a web cast, than put together a podcast – less editing – but in order for it to grow, you really need to host the show at the same time each week. Some blogging friends are encouraging me to test UStream.com as an alternative, so look for that in the coming weeks.

Thanks Andy!

Guess the Internet Marketing Site game is back with round 8 today. Guess the site and you win a post about you and your blog!

Congrats to Chad Trent of Finnish Gifts with the win and Thanks to TopRank!

Sorry folks, I don’t have a Guess the Internet Marketing Site game today. A new round of the game will return next Friday.

This month we have two  events for search marketers in the Twin Cities. This month’s MIMA event is The Future of Search on Wednesday, July 11th at the Calhoun Beach Club. This promises to be a great event with representatives from Google, MSN and Ask and moderated by Chris Boggs from Avenue A | Razorfish. Get this one on your calendar!

On Tuesday, July 17th we are having a get-together for local search marketers at The Liffey in St. Paul. This is an informal event not associated with MIMA but folks from the old MIMA SEO/SEM Geek Group should be well represented. We hope everybody that is in town and interested in Search Marketing comes on down for a drink and some socializing with other search folks. Please help spread the word on this one!

I used Marketing Pilgrim in round 5 of Guess the Internet Marketing Site game two weeks ago and I want to thank Andy Beal, thanks Andy! Andy and company do a great job of delivering the internet marketing news of the day. Be sure to get this site into your daily rotation.

Andy also does a weekly podcast on the latest internet marketing news and just recently started using blogTV for his podcasts. You can watch the next episode of Marketing Pilgrim Live on Thursday, July 5th.

IF you want a chance at a free $300 or maybe $600, subscribe to the Marketing Pilgrim RSS Feed and you’ve got a chance!

Thanks Andy!

I threw folks a bit of a curve with round 7 of the Guess the internet Marketing Site game by using a site many have not yet heard of, The PPC Book by Jeff Hudson. Jeff does a great job with his blog where he writes about pay per click and internet marketing with no extra spin included. In order for you and I to get to know Jeff a little better I asked him the following questions.

Q: You have had your blog going for over a year now, tell us about theppcbook.com and how you like blogging.

• At the time I started blogging there really wasn’t much out there for paid search, all the blogs were focused on SEO, so it was more of a effort to bring attention to the people who work within PPC niche of search marketing. Like most bloggers who have to pay bills the challenge is to find the time to make relevant, useful posts. I always focus on clients first, and I only post when I have downtime (which is never), or when I’m particularly worked up about something (often).

Q: Could you share a bit of your work background, it looks like you have worked with some very interesting and well known online companies, most recently with Local Launch.

• For someone who didn’t really like computers (studio arts major at the U), I seem to have made a career out of them. My first ‘real job’ was creating print ads for Sesame Street Live (Vee Corporation). Around that time the internet became mainstream, and the site we built for them will probably go down as one of the top 5 worst websites ever created. I wish I could find it on archive.org, but they don’t even go back that far. I graduated from there to my first real ‘internet’ company, working as a producer for AOL DigitalCities, which was the local AOL play. The Minneapolis office was on 4th street, I believe. I really enjoyed the people and the company, I felt like I learned something new every day. They phased that office out eventually and I went to work for the Microsoft competitor, Sidewalk. Cendant, a company out of Chicago was managing the production, and I had to move there for the position. After that project was completed I moved into a position at MyPoints, a company that pioneered online loyalty programs. I learned a lot about customer acquisition, LTV, monetization, etc. I stayed for almost 3 years and went through the whole internet IPO rise and fall bubble thing there. They were eventually purchased by United Airlines. After Coolsavings, which was similar to MyPoints, I kind of fell into Locallaunch, which was started by a very talented group of guys. I began there as a PPC Analyst, and eventually ran the SEM Client Services division, handling PPC and SEO for their larger clients. After they were purchased by RH Donnelly I decided to forge out on my own. I have a lot of practical, hands-on experience that clients can appreciate . I’ve done well so far and have a small but growing and loyal client list.

Q: I see you recently moved to Minneapolis, what brought you to Minnesota?

• Other than the winters? Actually, quality of life and family. I love it here, and have been working on convincing my wife for probably 5 years. All it took was a trip up near the boundary waters 2 years ago and the wheels were in motion. We just moved to a great neighborhood by Lake Harriet, people are so nice here, and I have a yard for my son to run around in. Can’t beat it.

Q: Is there any other news or items you would like to share?

• I’m looking forward to learning more about the search marketing industry here in Minnesota. There’s a diverse economy here and a lot of focus on creativity, which is great to see. The company that I started in February is SEM Visibility (semvisibility.com). We handle SEM clients directly and also function as a 3rd party to agencies who need to outsource SEM services.

Thanks Jeff for the use of your site in the game and also sharing a bit about you and your business. The PPC Book is now in my Google Reader list!