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Marty Martin
- Marty has been an active search marketing professional for over 12 years. He has consulted with the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 as well as medium to small B2B and B2c businesses, governments and higher ed.
Just because you can…
- October 17th, 2008
- SEO
- 1 Comments
I have a good example today of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
A lot of website developers and owners understand enough about search optimization to know incoming links to your site can be a very important part of your overall strategy. What many don't understand though is it does matter where those links come from.
Here's a great example of search engine link spam-http://www.hookah-smoking.com/dir/directory.html.
If you visit this website, you'll see it has everything to do with smoking the hookah. If you scroll down the page, what you'll find is a spammy list of "link trades" from sites like LiveSouth.com. The aforementioned website advertises luxury real estate...to quote a co-worker, "...there's quality traffic for you, nothing pre-qualifies a luxury home buyer like a little hookah smoking addiction."
Folks, when you're out there trading links, buying links or whatever techniques you use in acquiring links to your site, for goodness sake keep it relevant. The search engines aren't going to award you for spamminess and it's no service to your own visitors either.
And if you're looking for certified SEOs, you should start your search here: SEO Certification.
I can has Zi.ma?!
- October 2nd, 2008
- Miscellany
- 2 Comments
Here's entry #1 for the Scary SEO contest-
Google Trends and Elections 2008
- October 1st, 2008
- Metrics
- 0 Comments
There are many different metrics tools out there in the wider web for measuring traffic trends, but one of the more recent (and also free) has been Google Trends for search and Google Trends for websites. The use of web metrics for predicting the outcome of popular elections is by no means original to me, but it's worth writing again to explore the current scenario.
One important thing to keep in mind about Google Trends and other web traffic estimators is these numbers have been normalized, which is to say they do not represent specific numbers but "the division of multiple sets of data by a common variable...allowing underlying characteristics of the data to be compared" [credit]. That is why they're called "trends" and not actual "statistics".
Effective use of social media for a business
- September 30th, 2008
- Social Media
- 2 Comments
Businesses often ask us how to effectively use social media to promote themselves. So much depends on the business but I want to illustrate one effective use that came to my attention today.
Yesterday, a Twitter friend asked if anyone knew where to get mass-produced souvenir key chains he could brand with his logo that had a 24-hour turnaround time. A quick Google search later and I had found a company who offered such a service so I sent him a message on Twitter with the companies URL.
Today, while in the midst of many other things, I received a reply message from who else? The company I had recommended.
Why #1 isn’t necessary
- September 29th, 2008
- SEO
- 2 Comments
In sports being #1 is the ultimate goal of each team and there can be only one. In search engine optimization, clients and SEOs alike often focus on the #1 place in search results for particular key words and phrases but it really isn't necessary to be #1 to be successful, and any SEO who guarantees a client a #1 spot on Google or any other search engine is taking a huge risk in making that promise.
Snake-oil promises
Why you might ask? Google and all search engines regularly change their ranking algorithms, other competitors enter the field of competition and a myriad of other scenarios cause daily fluctuations in search engine result pages (SERPs). If you are fortunate enough to be #1 in Google, better enjoy it because staying there for any length of time takes incredible effort (and a fair shake of good luck too).ISP behavioral targeting v. You
- September 26th, 2008
- News
- 0 Comments
The U.S. Congress has been investigating the use of behavioral targeting since protests raised awareness of large ISPs like Embarq, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable using the targeted ad service from web tracking company NebuAd.
The question at hand is whether the analyzing of deep packet Internet traffic violates federal wiretap laws by not gaining consent from the consumer to the gathering and use of their web communications.
The latest news is AT&T and Verizon have both pledged to refrain from collecting and tracking the browsing behavior of their customers unless they receive explicit permission from the affected consumers. It's also rather interesting to note that they are in support of self-regulating themselves, if and when they do begin using this technology, because hey they can be trusted to tell us about it, right?
SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar
- September 25th, 2008
- News
- 0 Comments
In August our principal visited Seattle for a pro training seminar sponsored by the experts at SEOmoz. It was an intense two days covering a variety of search engine optimization techniques, industry news, social media, question and answer and many other search topics.
It was also a great opportunity to connect and network with other search engine professionals from around the world. There were in-house SEO experts from companies like Microsoft and Best Buy and from as far away as Germany, England and New Zealand. The broad array of experience and knowledge at the seminar became exceptionally apparent during the excellent question and answer session (see image on right).
Just because you can…
- October 17th, 2008
- SEO
- 1 Comments
I have a good example today of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
A lot of website developers and owners understand enough about search optimization to know incoming links to your site can be a very important part of your overall strategy. What many don't understand though is it does matter where those links come from.
Here's a great example of search engine link spam-http://www.hookah-smoking.com/dir/directory.html.
If you visit this website, you'll see it has everything to do with smoking the hookah. If you scroll down the page, what you'll find is a spammy list of "link trades" from sites like LiveSouth.com. The aforementioned website advertises luxury real estate...to quote a co-worker, "...there's quality traffic for you, nothing pre-qualifies a luxury home buyer like a little hookah smoking addiction."
Folks, when you're out there trading links, buying links or whatever techniques you use in acquiring links to your site, for goodness sake keep it relevant. The search engines aren't going to award you for spamminess and it's no service to your own visitors either.
And if you're looking for certified SEOs, you should start your search here: SEO Certification.
I can has Zi.ma?!
- October 2nd, 2008
- Miscellany
- 2 Comments
Here's entry #1 for the Scary SEO contest-
Google Trends and Elections 2008
- October 1st, 2008
- Metrics
- 0 Comments
There are many different metrics tools out there in the wider web for measuring traffic trends, but one of the more recent (and also free) has been Google Trends for search and Google Trends for websites. The use of web metrics for predicting the outcome of popular elections is by no means original to me, but it's worth writing again to explore the current scenario.
One important thing to keep in mind about Google Trends and other web traffic estimators is these numbers have been normalized, which is to say they do not represent specific numbers but "the division of multiple sets of data by a common variable...allowing underlying characteristics of the data to be compared" [credit]. That is why they're called "trends" and not actual "statistics".
Effective use of social media for a business
- September 30th, 2008
- Social Media
- 2 Comments
Businesses often ask us how to effectively use social media to promote themselves. So much depends on the business but I want to illustrate one effective use that came to my attention today.
Yesterday, a Twitter friend asked if anyone knew where to get mass-produced souvenir key chains he could brand with his logo that had a 24-hour turnaround time. A quick Google search later and I had found a company who offered such a service so I sent him a message on Twitter with the companies URL.
Today, while in the midst of many other things, I received a reply message from who else? The company I had recommended.
Why #1 isn’t necessary
- September 29th, 2008
- SEO
- 2 Comments
In sports being #1 is the ultimate goal of each team and there can be only one. In search engine optimization, clients and SEOs alike often focus on the #1 place in search results for particular key words and phrases but it really isn't necessary to be #1 to be successful, and any SEO who guarantees a client a #1 spot on Google or any other search engine is taking a huge risk in making that promise.
Snake-oil promises
Why you might ask? Google and all search engines regularly change their ranking algorithms, other competitors enter the field of competition and a myriad of other scenarios cause daily fluctuations in search engine result pages (SERPs). If you are fortunate enough to be #1 in Google, better enjoy it because staying there for any length of time takes incredible effort (and a fair shake of good luck too).ISP behavioral targeting v. You
- September 26th, 2008
- News
- 0 Comments
The U.S. Congress has been investigating the use of behavioral targeting since protests raised awareness of large ISPs like Embarq, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable using the targeted ad service from web tracking company NebuAd.
The question at hand is whether the analyzing of deep packet Internet traffic violates federal wiretap laws by not gaining consent from the consumer to the gathering and use of their web communications.
The latest news is AT&T and Verizon have both pledged to refrain from collecting and tracking the browsing behavior of their customers unless they receive explicit permission from the affected consumers. It's also rather interesting to note that they are in support of self-regulating themselves, if and when they do begin using this technology, because hey they can be trusted to tell us about it, right?
SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar
- September 25th, 2008
- News
- 0 Comments
In August our principal visited Seattle for a pro training seminar sponsored by the experts at SEOmoz. It was an intense two days covering a variety of search engine optimization techniques, industry news, social media, question and answer and many other search topics.
It was also a great opportunity to connect and network with other search engine professionals from around the world. There were in-house SEO experts from companies like Microsoft and Best Buy and from as far away as Germany, England and New Zealand. The broad array of experience and knowledge at the seminar became exceptionally apparent during the excellent question and answer session (see image on right).
Just because you can…
- October 17th, 2008
- SEO
- 1 Comments
I have a good example today of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
A lot of website developers and owners understand enough about search optimization to know incoming links to your site can be a very important part of your overall strategy. What many don't understand though is it does matter where those links come from.
Here's a great example of search engine link spam-http://www.hookah-smoking.com/dir/directory.html.
If you visit this website, you'll see it has everything to do with smoking the hookah. If you scroll down the page, what you'll find is a spammy list of "link trades" from sites like LiveSouth.com. The aforementioned website advertises luxury real estate...to quote a co-worker, "...there's quality traffic for you, nothing pre-qualifies a luxury home buyer like a little hookah smoking addiction."
Folks, when you're out there trading links, buying links or whatever techniques you use in acquiring links to your site, for goodness sake keep it relevant. The search engines aren't going to award you for spamminess and it's no service to your own visitors either.
And if you're looking for certified SEOs, you should start your search here: SEO Certification.
I can has Zi.ma?!
- October 2nd, 2008
- Miscellany
- 2 Comments
Here's entry #1 for the Scary SEO contest-
Google Trends and Elections 2008
- October 1st, 2008
- Metrics
- 0 Comments
There are many different metrics tools out there in the wider web for measuring traffic trends, but one of the more recent (and also free) has been Google Trends for search and Google Trends for websites. The use of web metrics for predicting the outcome of popular elections is by no means original to me, but it's worth writing again to explore the current scenario.
One important thing to keep in mind about Google Trends and other web traffic estimators is these numbers have been normalized, which is to say they do not represent specific numbers but "the division of multiple sets of data by a common variable...allowing underlying characteristics of the data to be compared" [credit]. That is why they're called "trends" and not actual "statistics".
Effective use of social media for a business
- September 30th, 2008
- Social Media
- 2 Comments
Businesses often ask us how to effectively use social media to promote themselves. So much depends on the business but I want to illustrate one effective use that came to my attention today.
Yesterday, a Twitter friend asked if anyone knew where to get mass-produced souvenir key chains he could brand with his logo that had a 24-hour turnaround time. A quick Google search later and I had found a company who offered such a service so I sent him a message on Twitter with the companies URL.
Today, while in the midst of many other things, I received a reply message from who else? The company I had recommended.
Why #1 isn’t necessary
- September 29th, 2008
- SEO
- 2 Comments
In sports being #1 is the ultimate goal of each team and there can be only one. In search engine optimization, clients and SEOs alike often focus on the #1 place in search results for particular key words and phrases but it really isn't necessary to be #1 to be successful, and any SEO who guarantees a client a #1 spot on Google or any other search engine is taking a huge risk in making that promise.
Snake-oil promises
Why you might ask? Google and all search engines regularly change their ranking algorithms, other competitors enter the field of competition and a myriad of other scenarios cause daily fluctuations in search engine result pages (SERPs). If you are fortunate enough to be #1 in Google, better enjoy it because staying there for any length of time takes incredible effort (and a fair shake of good luck too).ISP behavioral targeting v. You
- September 26th, 2008
- News
- 0 Comments
The U.S. Congress has been investigating the use of behavioral targeting since protests raised awareness of large ISPs like Embarq, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable using the targeted ad service from web tracking company NebuAd.
The question at hand is whether the analyzing of deep packet Internet traffic violates federal wiretap laws by not gaining consent from the consumer to the gathering and use of their web communications.
The latest news is AT&T and Verizon have both pledged to refrain from collecting and tracking the browsing behavior of their customers unless they receive explicit permission from the affected consumers. It's also rather interesting to note that they are in support of self-regulating themselves, if and when they do begin using this technology, because hey they can be trusted to tell us about it, right?
SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar
- September 25th, 2008
- News
- 0 Comments
In August our principal visited Seattle for a pro training seminar sponsored by the experts at SEOmoz. It was an intense two days covering a variety of search engine optimization techniques, industry news, social media, question and answer and many other search topics.
It was also a great opportunity to connect and network with other search engine professionals from around the world. There were in-house SEO experts from companies like Microsoft and Best Buy and from as far away as Germany, England and New Zealand. The broad array of experience and knowledge at the seminar became exceptionally apparent during the excellent question and answer session (see image on right).
