Did you get the memo? With Google’s increased focus on content freshness and other social-laced algorithmic updates, marketers already keen on blogging and other recurrent content strategies have a definite leg up. But how far do SEOs need to go and at how great a cost for what results?

What results can churn-and-burn-puppy-mill SEO-laced assembly content attain? Are there advantages to going “high-end” and really making an ongoing content investment, and how might that affect results? Sure, we all know the objectives are to drive traffic, earn links, generate social signals, compel & motivate conversion… but what results are reasonably attainable for which types of content?

Continuum Of Content Success
First, why do we create content, anyway? What are the ultimate objectives and how do we measure success? Here, marketers would say that content is successful when:

• Customers and potential customers are provided with valuable insights to demystify processes, lend perspective, solve problems, stimulate interest; pique emotions and serve needs…

You heard it here first! The Duluth Chamber of Commerce is about to announce an ambitious three track social media marketing conference.  “Zenith Social Media Marketing Conference 2012, Tips, Tools, Tactics, & Beyond,” will be held May 23, in multiple locations in our beautiful city.

But make no mistake. This is no “local” conference, rather a national level conclave held locally…

Businesses: raise your hand if you barely cared about Google+ until your SEO consultant called to say now you just have to. While the disproportionate weight Google is placing on + motivated results may be unhealthy for SERPs in the short term, opening a relatively easy + door to bomb Google SERPs serves the function of enlisting SEOs to goad businesses into participating in Google’s fledgling social community…

My content marketing mentors were marvelous gray-haired men and woman, who cut their teeth during the Mad Men era. They trained me to develop story headlines first by brainstorming quickly through numerous theory statements, choosing the appropriate concept to develop, and then taking time to build out a polished headline.

The timeless premise is that it’s important to fully understand what needs to be communicated before attempting to package it in a headline…

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As aimClear celebrates our five year anniversary, following August’s much anticipated move to our incredible new office, we’re unveiling a branding campaign, mostly for the fun of it. The Über-groovy banners (below) were created by artist Rachael Stene with support from Manny Rivas and Joe Warner…

On January 15, 2012 I will kick off aimClear’s intense 2012 conference speaking schedule by moderating and presenting at SMX Israel 2012.  I am honored to say the least. The venue is the Inbal Hotel, one of the finest hotels in all of Jerusalem, located near the Old City and Liberty Bell Park. The sessions will be hosted and is programmed by our good friend and Conference Chair Barry Schwartz (@RustyBrick)…

The concept of being social and engaging communities has been around a lot longer than “social media.” Today I was hooked by a vanity bait mechanism I helped create more than 15 years ago, in my role of Creative Director of a CBS affiliate station in Duluth.

Imagine my surprise to see my daughter on television this morning! Her school’s choir was singing on the local CBS affiliate’s Sunday morning news show…

Last week Indiana University’s Hoosier Nation was totally screaming, abuzz at IUs stunning upset of (previously) #1 Kentucky.  I saw some retweets among my community that highlighted an incredible reality: These days sports fans don’t just yell at the players in the stadium or at their television sets. They yell at each other on Twitter, at the speed of rabid emotion!

I’m watching IU/Notre Dame game now…

Sometimes it takes a grownup, in physical life, to remind us the basics of online community management. Celia Cohn was handling Ambassador duties at the front entrance of the Westin™ Kierland Resort, the official #SMX Social Scottsdale hotel. Her job is to greet guests in the hotel lobby, guide, engage and support.

She greeted me as I walked by, “Mr. Weintraub, how did your speaking go today, or is it tomorrow?” The familiar greeting surprised me, as I did not remember engaging with Celia prior…

This post shares new and traditional measurement options to sooth the savage SEO.  We’ll also offer a different take on organic keyword tracking, based on page level semantic cluster analysis using Webmaster Tools to mash in keywords, missing as a result of Google’s encrypted search. SO… read the whole post or skim down now for the sexy stuff. OK, let’s get started solving the new success measurement riddle-SEO, brothers and sisters! We’ll start with the most basic solutions like ranking reports, Bing data and new vs…

For years, the “Site:” search operator has provided a quick method to distill mainstream SERPs (search engine result pages) down to results from a single website or class of websites. The operator works for major international search engines including Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, and others. Concatenate keywords to filter SERPs matriculated by both site and keyword. When focused on identifying conversations in social, the “Site:” search operator becomes a powerful tool indeed…

Ah, SearchEngineStrategies Chicago has commenced and the feeds are jamming! One hallmark of SES conferences is the virulent tweet stream of fantastic insights, anecdotes, data and other brilliant tidbits that titillate and tantalize via Twitter for all the world to consume in a learning frenzy.  For those online marketers who were not tuned into the #SESCHI hashtag all day, here are some of our favorite tweets from day one

By far, my vote for awesome tweet of the day came from our friend Kevin Lee…

Welcome to aimClear’s stunning new home, 9 West Superior Street. Located at the crossroads of Duluth, Minnesota, Superior Street and Lake Avenue in the very heart of our city. Read on for a look at the historical background of our new digs, and a sneak peek inside…

From 1884 until 1932, this magnificent Romanesque style building, designed by renowned architects Oliver Traphagen and George Wirth, was home to the legendary Silverstein & Bondy Department Store…

Since we published our post (Did $10 Million In Destination Marketing Make Duluth Famous?) I’ve enjoyed stimulating exchanges with folks we respect. To those who reached out, thank you! We received a number of thought-provoking questions. These inquiries resonated with us, because the very idea was to inspire dialog. We thought our readers would find some of the questions and answers interesting…

We live in a marketing world where it’s possible to evaluate brands based on empirical demographic data culled from massive penetration of digital channels. To our international search and social marketing readers, we hope you find this article’s approach to profiling our region’s tourism brand-penetration a useful methodology to use with your clients. To Duluth’s people, aimClear offers the study as a contribution to this glorious city and the wonderful community that spawned our company…

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at #SMX East, on a panel that focused entirely on SEO KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). As search engine optimization has become inexorably intertwined with social media and universal SERPs, so too has the spectrum of goals diverged from keyword-traffic-only-measurements marketers looked to in days of old. In the true spirit of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid), we set out to reduce classic and potential KPI data points to a streamlined chart, expressing a matrix of analytic possibilities…

With such huge modifications rolling out in the Facebook UI, little or no attention is being paid to quiet changes taking place in Facebook Ads. Thanks to our friend Julie Gallaher for bringing us notice of the apparent loss baffling change to Facebook Ads Birthday targeting.

Birthday targeting allowed marketers to push psychological buttons with users specifically on their birthdays, a technique that was colorful and worked in some situations…

One of the coolest marketing blog measurements on earth has been gutted, and we’re crushed (Sniff). The AdAge Power 150 has been reworked in response to the loss of PostRank as a key component. Recently purchased by Google, PostRank shut down their API service. Collective Intellect, another key API used in the Power 150 formula, shuttered their API as well.  These sophisticated social signal aggregation and analysis API tools have been replaced in the AdAge Power 150 by a crude mashup of Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Link data, something called “Todd Score” and Alexa…

Google’s recent modification of how link data is categorized in Webmaster Tools had observant SEO practitioners and clients asking interesting questions. If you’re wondering if it’s time to put the brakes on rolling up your subdomains as an SEO tactic because of this Google change, this post has important information.

To be clear, though Big “G” tossed around twenty-five cent words like “reclassification,” there is now confirmation that the update changed nothing algorithmically and only affects how Google displays existing link data in Webmaster tools…



In late 2009 we published a blog post, “Is Your PPC Expert Asleep at the Switch? 6 Minute Self-Audit.” The post generated a bunch of happy-buzz as laypeople (non-PPC professionals) finally had the means to grab a peek to see if their current PPC agency of record or in-house team might be comprised of smelly carpetbaggers. Though the AdWords PPC UI has changed some, the 2009 suggestions are still applicable…

Over the last couple of days, Facebook Ads quietly deployed a targeting feature that consolidate some inventory. Think of the new hashtag “Topic” operator as a social segment phrase match concept that rolls up tightly related interests up under one expression.  The new capability, available in the stock Web UI, will should prove useful to advertisers’ workflow and the organic demographic research process…

Unless you’ve got a time machine, it’s not always realistic to achieve a sustainable CPA (cost per action) by way of paid cost-per-click online marketing channels alone. This post offers a pragmatic multi-channel case study to prove the significant financial benefits of SEO, social media, and public relations to drive and convert traffic. In the early days, target CPAs were usually attainable solely by paid online advertising…

I’ve recently had two transcendent experiences to further frame my now nearly 20-year career as an online marketer. First, I essentially stepped away from aimClear’s offices in Duluth and Saint Paul for 6 months to write a book about Facebook Ads. Then, literally as the book was completed, I had heart damage fixed. During cancer treatment over five years ago, my aortic valve was seriously impacted by chemo and radiation…

From pharmaceutical mega-corporations, attorneys, and health care purveyors to insurance companies and universities, skittish B2C and B2B online marketing managers operating in regulated industries are still afraid to participate in social media. Other unregulated companies, led by old school PR-adverse managers, self-restrict to a ridiculous extent out of paranoia, misunderstanding or ignorance…

Facebook Ads, “Advertising Performance Reports” are the primary analytics marketers use to optimize FB Ads campaigns and create reports. Over the last few weeks, and through the May 25th UI update, our aimClear team thoroughly researched available optimization metrics,  what they mean, where they appear, and at what access points they are editable in various screens. The process reminded us of reverse engineering an octopus…

Bruce Clay was SEO way before SEO was cool. His name has become synonymous with corporate SEO training. Having created one of the first iconic SEO agency brands, nestled in the lovely foothills of Simi Valley, CA, his book, SEO For Dummies is a staple.  He is a mainstay in the international online marketing conference circuit and an early advocate for the “Siloing” concept of channeling authority and energy throughout content management systems by linking…

Is your business listening and responding appropriately to those who reach out? Last February our post, 6 Superb First Social Media Tactics For Business caught some buzz and conversation. We discussed the importance of listening and offering unconditional service to new friends who would be customers, when they obviously seek to engage.

The more I travel the world, broadcasting experiences as I go, the more this basic tenant resonates…

Imagine my surprise, whilst checking out notifications on our new aimClear Facebook Page, when I noticed not one but TWO ads from Chitika, Inc on my right hand sidebar. Hmmm.  They had the same count of likes, same headline, etc…

I clicked on each, only to discover that both pointed at exactly the same URL. How does this happen? Is Chitika gaming Facebook by running Facebook Ads from two different accounts? Probably not we think, as Chitika is a reputable company…

There are a number of obvious signals that an SEO tool is not serious in the vernacular.  Read on for some of our all time gross-me-out tell-tail signs.

Promotion By Spam, Not SERPs Success
One clear signal is how the tool’s owners or affiliates promote the software. Do they speak at conferences, offer white papers or provide testimonials from respected industry players?  OK, mainstream does not always have to be the path…

A blessed component of my job, as CEO of aimClear, is traveling all over the world to speak at online marketing conferences.  Dude, I’m pretty tired after the 14 hour flight from Sydney to LAX, 3 hours to Minneapolis and another half hour on to Duluth. Still, the excitement at having spent 7 glorious days in Sydney and Manly Australia has not waned a bit, even in light of exhaustion…