Month: August 2007

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SES San Jose 2007 Day 4 – Wikipedia, Social Media & SEO

Moderator:
Detlev Johnson, VP, Director of Consulting, Position Technologies
Search Engine Marketing Speakers:
Neil Patel, Co-founder, ACS
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts, LLC
Jonathan Hochman, Founder/President, JE Hochman & Associates LLC
Don Steele, Director of Digital Enterprise Marketing, Comedy Central

Neil Patel

Why Wikipedia?
Authority links
Traffic
Branding
Information

What not to do?
Link Building
Add Biased Information
Delete Accurate Information
Break Community Rules
SPAM

They spammed. Wikipedia – Elephant population triples example

Don’t be a dick – page on Wikipedia

Develop a reputation as an editor
– Add information first, links second
– Follow the notability rule

Add images

Use other wikis…

Jonathan Hochman – Jehochman on Wikipedia

Edited Search Engine Optimization article, then it got featured

Wikipedia article can outrank the front page.

Digg is great, but it’s

Wikipedia traffic is far larger than Digg traffic

Google ip address blocked. Wikiscanner can tell what networks edited what

Don Steele, Comedy Central

Traffic volume success in SEO make wikipedia a vital channel.

Our content is highly referenced and referred on Wikipedia and Comedy Central gets a lot of traffic.

What we don’t do…

We don’t change our brand perception.

Stephan Spencer, Netconcepts

Getting your edits to Stick

You need history and street credibility.

Incorporate content edits when adding a link. It makes it harder to revert your edit.

Getting Your Edits to Stick

Add your links within References rather than External Links.

Creating New Entries – Much harder.

Participate through the talk page.

AFD and speedy delete are bad.

Mainstream media articles are preferred

Friends Social Network

Internal politics, reversion wars, ego trips, indiscriminate removal of commercial content

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SES San Jose Day 4 – Buzz Monitoring

Moderator:
Chris Sherman, Co-Chair, SES San Jose
Search Engine Marketing Speakers:
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Andy Beal, Consultant, Editor, Author, MarketingPilgrim.com
Jonathan Ashton, Director of SEO, Agency.com

Rob Key

Consumers trust each other the most

Social media rapidly gaining SERP Predominance and are now intertwined.

You no longer own your brand. Your brand is a conversation.

What is below the waterline of this iceberg?

You are losing control.

Conversation Mining (Buzz Monitoring)

This conversation is replacing traditional market research.

Are you listening to consumer generated media? You should be….

How do we engage this into a social media strategy.

Go across all and many forms.

It’s amazing how the conversation leads will occur.

Conversation mining provides many, many benefits.

Is this person a reasonable or determined detractor – how you treat them differently.

Andy Beal

Editor – Marketingpilgrim.com

Writing a book on this subject

Company name, executives, customers, press releases, partners, reviews, etc.

Potential Tools to Use:
Moreover.com – industry
news.google.com
Digg.com
Technorati.com
Co.mments.com
Blogpulse.com/conversation
Blogpulse.com/trend
Flickr (other photo sharing sites)
video.google.com – now a true search engine
keotag.com
wikipedia.org
oodle.com
google.brand.edgar-online.com
upcoming.yahoo.com
amazon.com/tag/iphone
google.com/trends/
searchanalytics.compete.com
copernic.com
pipes.yahoo.com

Jonathan Ashton, Director, Agency.com

Search engines magnify smaller voices.

Buzz Management now equals Brand Management

Remove top down approach to brand management

Powerful impact of consumer comment sites

Blog as a soapbox – existing entry, comment added.

Co-opetition is a key to mitigation

Maximize Your Own Site to Run Interface

Orkin has a Wikipedia page and Terminix does not.

Again, creative thinking and co-opetition.

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SES San Jose Technology Disconnections

I’m struck by two interesting incidents I had with some Googlers this week in regards to communication.

The first involved Google Calendar and a lunch appointment. The lunch appointment stated 2:15PM. What I didn’t know is that this was Chicago time! The lunch was for 12:15 San Jose time. Unfortunately, none of the communications from Google Calendar mentioned the time zone conversion that had occurred.

Later that same day, I was supposed to connect with another Google employee via cell phone at the Google Dance. I dialed the number provided and the person’s spouse answered. The confused spouse stated that their significant other was at the Google Dance and that they coudln’t understand how I had dialed this number. Well that made two of us! I later learned that this person was experimenting with Grand Central and that both numbers were set to ring and that their cell phone could not be heard at the dance.

The people involved and myself have already shared a good laugh about all of this so there is no need for Adam Lasnik or Matt Cutts to send any notes of apology or anything like that!

I’ve recently become fascinated by the way that technology that is meant to improve our communication often fragments communication instead! This is something to keep top of mind as we enter the mobile era and design and execute the mobile search services of the future. How do we reduce communication fragmentation by the usage of technology?

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SES San Jose – Conference Networking Tip

Yesterday I met Henry Li who recently joined Ask.com as a Director in Business Development.

How and why did I meet him?

Did I walk up to him and introduce myself? No.

Was he wearing Ask.com clothing? No.

OK, tell me how you met him then…

Simple. I always carry an extension cord with me to allow me to share the all too scarce conference power sources. This has the added benefit of having an extra outlet or two handy for other people. Henry walked up to me and asked if he could plug in. Then we chatted and learned that we had a common Wall Street / Financial Services background.

Nice to meet you Henry! Talk to you again soon.

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SES San Jose 2007 Day 3 – Mobile Search Optimization

Moderator:
Detlev Johnson, VP, Director of Consulting, Position Technologies
Search Engine Marketing Speakers:
Cindy Krum, Senior SEO Analyst, Blue Moon Works
Rachel Pasqua, Director of Mobile Marketing, iCrossing
Gregory Markel, Founder/President, Infuse Creative, LLC

Cindy Crum, Blue Moon Works

– Many aspects of Mobile Optimization follow Traditional SEO Wisdom
– Optimal Mobile Experience = Return Mobile Traffic = Better Results in Mobile Search Engines
– Device Independence: Traditional sites being viewed on Mobile Technology

What is Different About Mobile?
– Industry is in infancy
– Different bots / Crawlers
– Mobile Search Engines More Like Portals
– Many Different Browsers possible
– Slow Download Speed and Connectivity Issues

Development Best Practices
XHTML
Traditional Browsers are forgiving – Mobile Browsers are not
Infinite Combinations possible
Right Accessibility Standards Make it ideal
Avoid unnecessary code
Separate Content from design with CSS

External CSS
– Separates content from design
– Minimizes Code Required
– Decreases Load Time
– Ensures Correct Display on Different Screen Resolutions
– Allows you to specify rendering

Have mobile specific stylesheets
– One set of code, two stylesheets
– Screen first, handheld is second one in cascade
– Caveat: “display:none” to hide elements in either rendering

Use appropriate headers – HTTP User-agent, Accept and MIME types

iPhone

Google has a separate search page for the iPhone

Log in omitted, features and some ads are omitted

Follow all SEO Best Preactices
– Minimize File Size
– Submit your Site to Mobile Search Engines

Testing is important
– Opera, Skeezer, Google device simulators
– Test transcoded versus non-transcoded versions of Your Site

Validate your Site with mobile code checkers…

Embrace the Interactivity
– Provide relevant Info for People who are mobile
– Include your main address in the footer
– Make Phone Numbers and Email Addresses

Move your navigation to the bottom

Gregory Markel, Infuse Creative, LLC

No longer a WAP/Mobi world

Nokia S60 and Opera True web browser

Goog-411 (live demo rendered incorrect result)

Get listed in Google Local Business Listings

.mobi is diminishing in important

Optimization is synomonous with marketing

Mobile voice search is becoming more important

Rachel Pasqua, iCrossing

iCrossing started looking at mobile in 2005

3rd screen will come first

2.3 billion mobile subscribers as opposed to 1 billion users

Summarized the iCrossing “How America Searches Mobile, April 2007” report

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SES San Jose 2007 Day 2 – Images & Search Engines

I was going to attend this session but I arrived late because I was having a great conversation about his new project.

After yesterday’s speech by Greg Jarboe during the Universal Search session I knew this session would be popular. I had no idea that I could not even get a seat in a really hot room!!! Wow!

Shari Thurow, who just wrote a new book on this subject, and Chris Smith from Netconcepts gave great talks before I escaped for fresh air in the exhibit hall.

Fortunately, other folks that got seats did some great write ups of the session.