Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.
The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.
These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.
So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons…
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
Want to speak at our SMX Advanced Seattle search marketing conference this coming June 8 & 9? Our show that sells out every year? Here’s everything you need to know about doing it! We have TWO different pitching opportunities…
This week, despite still being seriously under the weather (see this week’s sad WB Friday), I flew down to SMX West to speak on the Link Building Strategies panel. Although I’d wanted to put more work in and deliver a better presentation, I received some very kind words afterward and requests from folks to share the deck via the blog. Before I embed the actual deck, though, I need to provide some context (as this isn’t a wholly self-explanatory presentation)…
<FACEPALM> In the past we’ve attended major industry conference-shindigs as one big live-blogging family. But dude, the aimClear team is expanding. Our 2010 conference agenda and travels to and fro might damn near pull us apart at the seams if we all went. In this quarter alone some of us will be returning from SXSW while others ship off to SES NY, some will fly back from the 140 Character Conference as Marty jet-sets to Sydney to speak at SMX… You get the picture…
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
It’s day three of SMX West 2010, and we’re going to kick off with a group keynote conversation called “The State Of The Search Union.” The description hints that we’ll be talking about where the industry is today, and where it’s going in the future…
As of today, this year’s Google I/O conference has sold out and registration is closed. That means more than 4,000 developers will be joining us on May 19-20 at Moscone West in San Francisco.Like years past, I/O will feature over 90 in-depth sessions and the opportunity to meet and learn from other developers, including those from the more than 160 companies that will demo in the Developer Sandbox…
Two types of advertisers run campaigns across the Google Content Network. The first group, direct response advertisers, measures the success of their campaigns by looking for clicks, traffic to their sites, and sales. In contrast, brand advertisers typically use display ads to raise awareness and purchase consideration for a product or service a person might buy down the road. Other advertisers are looking to achieve a combination of these goals…
iTunes became the first widely popular and successful Application Store. Since then, many other vendors have joined the gold rush. I write this blog post on the flight from Barcelona after spending a week at the Mobile World Congress, which is the biggest annual mobile exhibition and conference. This year it also included an event inside the event – Application Planet (an exhibition dedicated to mobile applications)…
Peter Norvig, you might have heard of him, or felt his presence on stormy mountain tops. Among several other accomplishments, he is the creator of Norvig’s Law, the world record holder for the longest palindrome, former head of computational sciences research at NASA, ballet dancer, current director of research at Google, & a human being.
SMX West Day 2 kicked off with a keynote from the genial Mr…
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
It’s day two of SMX West 2010 in a rainy Santa Clara, California, and we’ll be liveblogging today’s keynote session. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman will be chatting on the big stage with Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research…
Some people think keyword research consists of going to the Google Keyword tool, typing in four of their industry phrases & then just grabbing the keywords with the highest volume. But some people are ultra DumbPants month-punchers & need additional research guidance in order to find the highly targeted keyword permutations, relevant stemming topics & true opportunities for their brand/product/designer puppy-couch site…
There’s an old adage – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, unless you are carefully able to fix it in ways that helps all parties who use it & also it will make you more money, then you should think about trying to fix it, so good luck with this. Google essentially took this approach when they began testing new Adwords ad formats last year.
While opportunity with these new formats is apparent and massive, information is limited, compared to the abundance of tutorials & tools available for classic ads…
SMX West 2010 kicked off with quite a bang (or was that a yell?). Since Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer was the keynote, people arrived early to ensure good seats. The music playing before it started was amazing, it helped to create an excitement in the room that I really had never felt before a keynote before. I had attempted to save a seat for someone up front, but there was just too much demand and had to give it up…
Andrew over at the Local SEO Guide blog provides a great summary from SMX of what factors the big 3 search engines considering for ranking their real time search results. For the full story check out Local SEO Guide, the details on Google below.Google’s Real-time results include:
Ranking Factors for Google’s Real-time Algorithm
What webmasters should know: Pay attention to the mechanics of SEO but don’t overdo it…
When it was first announced that Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer would be keynoting this year’s SMX West, it was perceived as a nice surprise and unexpected legitimization of the search marketing industry from one of the big guys. The announcement left many marketers existentially pondering their role in the somewhat dysfunctional search family.
Did Ballmer, Microsoft, & Bing finally release SEOs from their search-kennel to offer them a seat at the dinner table? Or was it a pat on the head… an assurance that were are, indeed, “a good boy?”
With Joe Walsh blaring, Ballmer and moderator Danny Sullivan took (shook? no, took…) the stage to address a room packed full of SEOs, the press, and other people who wear glasses…
We’ve been getting a lot of questions in Q+A and on the road at events like last week’s Miva Merchant conference, Online Marketing Summit and the YCombinator conference about how to properly paginate results for search engines. In this post, we’ll cover the dangers, opportunities and optimization tactics that can best ensure success. The best part? These practices aren’t just good for SEO, they’re great for usability and user experience too!
Why is Pagination an SEO Issue?
Pagination, the practice of segmenting links to content on multiple pages, affects two critical elements of search engine accessibility…
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.
The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.
These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.
So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons…
I’d like to say thanks to the people who sponsored the blog this month. Without them, there wouldn’t be regular posts here.
Text Link Ads – New customers can get $100 in free text links.
CrazyEgg.com – Supplement your analytics with action information from click tracking heat maps.
BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the Internet’s oldest directory…
It’s remarkable really. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will take the stage for a “Fireside Chat” with Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of SearchEngineLand.com and conference co-chair, to kick off SMX West on March 2. In his inaugural address directly to the search marketing community, Mr. Ballmer will discuss Microsoft’s evolution in search and his vision of the future.
Given the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal, his appearance is an especially notable gesture…
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
We’re especially excited this year because we’ve changed the format of SMX London to be similar to our always sold-out SMX Advanced US show. We think the time is right to take things to the next level for the UK and European search marketing community…
We want to let you know that the changes to our pharmacy policy in the U.S. and Canada will start to go into effect today.As we explained a couple weeks ago, this update means that Google AdWords will only accept advertisements from VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies, and that these pharmacies can only target ads within the countries where they are accredited.To ensure that users see the most relevant and useful ads possible, pharmaceutical manufacturers and VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies will be allowed to run on prescription drug and pharmaceutical-related keywords…
You may recall that towards the end of 2009, we began testing a new feature called AdWords Comparison Ads. This feature lets users compare multiple relevant offers with ease, and it provides advertisers with a new sophisticated and flexible cost per lead format. Speed is of the essence for many users, so we’ve made sure that Comparison Ads shows targeted offers in less than a second. The initial test covered mortgage-related queries in the US…
The good news is that tomorrow (Wednesday 24th Feb), at 8.30am PST (11.30am EST / 4.30pm GMT), I am going to be joined on the next Distilled conference call by Richard Baxter as we discuss "how to get the most from your SEO". The even better news is that it is totally free (as long as you register in time).
If you would like to join us on the call, simply register on the Distilled site and you will be sent instructions to join the conference (which will be handled by gotomeeting / gotowebinar)…
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
Next week, on March 2, I’ll be interviewing Steve Ballmer on stage at our SMX West search marketing conference. This will be Ballmer’s first-ever appearance as a search event…
Persuasion Architecture, developed by conversion optimization gurus Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, is a persona-based approach to marketing. If you know a customer’s “buying modality” (Competitive, Spontaneous, Methodical or Humanistic), you can tailor your design, copy and direct marketing to best persuade that type of personality.
It would be ideal to segment an email list by personality type…
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.
The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.
These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.
So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons…
This Saturday, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. You’ll be unable to log in to your AdSense and Ad Manager accounts during this time, but we’ll continue serving ads to your pages and tracking your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. In addition, your ad targeting won’t be affected.We’ve converted the maintenance start time for a few cities around the world:London – 6pm SaturdayJohannesburg – 8pm SaturdayHyderabad – 11:30pm SaturdayHo Chi Minh City – 1am SundayBrisbane – 4am SundayIf you’d like to learn more about what goes on during these maintenance periods, check out this Inside AdSense post…
Back in January, we announced the start of early registration for Google I/O (our annual developer conference), and our team was excited to publish our new website for this year’s event. Today, we’re excited to give you a quick update on what’s in store for this year’s Google I/O and a brief look at what we’ve announced in the past five weeks.
I recently went looking for some software to make a blog into a book. Here’s what I found:
- Lulu will take PDF files for a book. Blogbooker.com will try to create a PDF from a blog. Unfortunately, my blog made BlogBooker choke (I have 991 posts from my blog) — even when I excluded comments.
- Blurb.com will try to create a book from a blog, but it only supports blogs hosted on WordPress…
An SEOBook reader, Josephbm91, outlined a problem many of us have faced: when you’re starting out, it’s easy for clients to walk all over you.
So let’s take a look at strategies for those starting out, be it in SEO, web design, or other small, web-based businesses. Those of you who have established web businesses, it would be great if you could share your experiences and strategies in the comments 
Making The Start
How do you make the start? You’ve got a computer, an internet connection, and a few ideas…
You're looking at my set of tools. The custom search engine helps me find the answers to questions more quickly. The RSS aggregator keeps me updated with industry news that matters. And, in the near future, I plan on documenting the major steps and considerations used in SEM as a check list (although it will also work well as a list of tutorials).
While I built (and am improving) the above tools for myself, it seemed like a waste to keep them to myself. After all, good will breeds good will, and perhaps you'll even help me find more great blogs to follow.
In the name of good karma, all my outgoing links on this site are followed. Treat others as you wish to be treated, right? Besides, I think the authors who we read daily deserve all the thanks (links) we can give.
I hope you find the SEM News feed and the free SEO search tool helpful.
- Brett at SEMNewsDaily.com
