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…

A couple weeks ago, 32 AdSense Help Forum Top Contributors (TCs) from around the world came to our Mountain View headquarters for a two-day summit, along with almost 300 other product TCs. If you participate in our Help Forum, you’ve probably noticed the very visible presence of our TCs, who lead product discussions and help answer questions. During the summit, we spent a bit of time discussing opportunities for further collaboration, the development of the TC program and new ideas for Google Forum Communities…

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• The Relationship Between Enterprise SEO & PPC: SMX East Recap

  During a whirlwind stay at SMX East, I had the enviable opportunity to speak at length about two of my all-time favorite topics: Enterprise PPC, and the relationship between paid and organic search…

Short tip for today, scratchpad style:

Retargeting ads are very successful … because they target an audience that already visited your site, and because they tend to offer deals to people who almost bought, but for whatever reason left before purchasing. These deals help push people across the threshold and get them to buy.

What if you did that offline? Someone comes into your car dealership and walks away with no keys… Call them back the next day with another offer based on what you think would close the deal…

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…

Useful Links:

SMX Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/searchmarketingexpo
Twitter # activity for the conference: http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23smx

Another successful SMX East is in the books. From all accounts, the event seemed to go through flawlessly and without a hitch. Kudos to Danny Sullivan, Claire Schoen, and crew as the caliber of speakers, sessions, and attendees was top notch, as always…

I’ve been out of town (hiking in Yosemite and traveling to the East Coast) for two out of the last three weeks, so things are a bit crazy. Besides the usual email overload, there’s a project at work–not related to webspam–that will need some attention for the next 4-5 weeks.

I’m triaging email as best I can, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get a response from me…

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…

On Wednesday I presented at SMX on the panel called "Facebook, Twitter, and SEO". I was excited to speak alongside Horst Joepen (SearchMetrics), Jim Yu (BrightEdge), and Michael Gray (Atlas Web Services). In my talk, I showed some information from patents that talked about how a search engine might detect a person’s topical relevance and authority and use a scale on which to pass link juice from their social shares or not…

At SMX Advanced earlier this year, a hot topic was the use of the rel=”canonical” attribute in conjunction with pagination. Maile Ohye of Google noted that the rel=”canonical” attribute was not intended to cluster multiple pages (articles, product lists, etc.) to page one of that series (although it can be used to cluster multiple pages to a “view all” page).

The discussion was fast and furious and we dove into the various pagination issues that content owners encounter…

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• SMX East 2011 Day Three Recap

  Day three of the SMX East conference is just about done. Below is some of the live blog coverage I discovered throughout the day. Beyond Rankings: Actionable SEO Reports Your Boss Will Love, outspokenmedia.com Bing and Personalized Search at SMX East – #smx #23B, adCenter Blog Link Building: Why You’re Doing It Wrong : SMX […

Welcome do Day 3 of aimClear’s coverage of #SMX East! Retargeting a.k.a. remarketing, a relatively new (and seemingly popular) online advertising technique, requires marketers to get inside the minds of users to define search intent, follow said users around across various websites, and serve tightly focused search & display ads that remind them, oh-so-subtly, that you’re still there, waiting, and ready to turn you into a conversion…

Keyword-Level Demographics

On Tuesday I made my speaking debut at SMX East 2011 on a panel with Lena Flanigan (Life Technologies) and the creator of Google Webmaster Tools Vanessa Fox (Nine by Blue). The session was called “Using Searcher Personas to Connect Search to Conversions” and I unveiled a methodology that I think is potentially game changing. Now I want to share this breakthrough with the community that has helped me build a name for myself…

Welcome back to aimClear’s coverage of #SMX East 2011! Ah, the fine art of communication. In the good old days, we could all freely converse with one another. Then, some brilliant folks got the idea to erect the Tower of Babel to get closer to the Big Man Upstairs, and we all know what happened there. Now, a zillion years later, we’re at it again – but this time, we’re not bridging the communication gap between [wo]man and neighbor…

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Bing Gets More Personal With Adaptive Search

  Bing has announced at SMX East today a new personalization feature named adaptive search. It seems a lot like Google’s previous query feature but supposedly, it goes well beyond just the previous query…

Welcome back to Day 2 of aimClear’s #SMX East 2011 coverage! The heavyweight battle between SEO and PPC has long graced the stage at mainstream online marketing conferences. Organic optimization in the red corner, paid search in the blue corner – powerful opponents seemingly fighting for a greater stake of your company budget.

Despite the provocatively titled session, suggesting a gloves-off bloody-nosed to-the-victor-go-all-my-marketing-dollars type scenario, attendees often walked away with a deeper understanding of and respect for the powerful combined forces of PPC and SEO…

#SMX East 2011 hosted a lively and stirring debate about the ubiquitous Google as a good “steward” of the world’s user’s and marketers online data. Which Way Google’s roundtable panel, led by Chris Sherman, included In the Plexauthor Steven Levy who has had the rare pleasure of infiltrating the notorious Google campus, Jeff Jarvis advocate of “publicness” and author of What Would Google Do? and Public Parts, and last but not least, the man with the microscope on Google- Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)…

Day 2 of #SMX East began with an insightful presentation of, and follow-up discussion about, what many people covet as the holy grail of search: Personalization. Users crave an intuitive search experience. Marketers want to be found by the right users. But is online personalization the harmony-seeking matchmaker it would appear?

Keynote speaker and author Eli Pariser, wisely, remains wary…

Welcome back to aimClear’s coverage of #SMX East 2011! Breaking News: Changing SEO elements of your website, e.g.: title tags, Meta descriptions, anchor text, interlinking structures, can have a tremendous affect on organic rankings. Okay, so maybe you don’t need spades of sophisticated know-how and online marketing agility to know that little tidbit. Pretty straight-forward: Update your site and take note if a ranking change occurs…

OK, maybe not all of them. But a lot!

We’re at SMX East this week and we’re (yes, I’m speaking mostly in the royal “we”, but Todd is on a panel too!) speaking on a BUNCH of panels. If you have a question about anything search related, even if you’re not going to be at the conference, please ask in the comments below, as I’m gathering up questions as fast as I can for panelists…

aimClear’s coverage of #SMX East 2011 kicked off with… PANDA WATCH! How else? Google’s furry little algorithm update, aimed to crack down on duplicate content, among other things, rolled out in waves during the late winter and early spring of 2011. Initially, only a portion of U.S. sites were affected, then international sites, then more U.S. sites, etc.

Largely due to this sweeping smackdown, Panda has been a hot topic at online marketing conferences this year…

This year the Google AdSense team will be attending the Games Developer Conference Online (GDC Online) expo on October 10th, 11th and 12th in Austin, Texas.

As part of the GDC Online, we’ll be hosting Google Developer Day where we’ll share ways in which publishers can use AdSense and AdMob to monetize their online games, websites and mobile applications. After our session, we’re looking forward to chatting with publishers and developers at the conference, and we’ll also be available at the Google booth to discuss and demo our AdSense for Games, AdSense for Content and AdMob products…

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…

It’s here, it’s here! #SMX East is finally here! You know what that means: Pilgrimages to the Big Apple, strolls through Central Park, and one of the coolest online marketing events this side of the Mississippi. Traditionally held in October, the East coast edition of Search Marketing Expo is usually the signal that rocket-launches New York City into autumn. This year with the conference calendared smack-dab in the middle of September, attendees are in for a sweet taste of late summer in the city that never sleeps…

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…

Two weeks ago, we headed up to San Francisco to participate in the Search Engine Strategies conference. Over two days, our AdWords and DoubleClick representatives were able to share, listen, and learn with several hundred of you. For those unable to attend, here’s a summary of some of the recent innovations we highlighted at the show, and a few photos from our booth on the expo floor.

The AdWords team took the stage to share some of our latest Ad Innovations with the SES audience…

We’re continually evaluating our AdSense application process in order to ensure the safest possible network for our advertisers, as well as the best possible experience for you, our publishers. With that in mind, we’ve now implemented a change to our initial review process that will result in a stronger AdSense network. Improving the quality of the network will drive more interest and demand from advertisers, increasing the earning potential for all of our publishers…

New York, New York! Man, we just love that city. The sights, the sounds, the smells… yes, we can’t seem to stay away from the Big Apple for too long. Every six months or so we get a serious itchin’ for some Chinatown dim sum, Katz’s Deli knishes, midtown food-truck Halal, and, oddly enough, online marketing brain-chow. We ate our fill in March for SES NY. Luckily, next month marks the east coast edition Search Marketing Expo, aptly named #SMX East, where we’ll stock up on the goods once more…

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.

BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the internet’s oldest directory.

Ezilon.com Regional Directory – Check to see if your website is listed!

Directory Journal – Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory

Link Building – Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295…

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…