by Jennifer Laycock
If someone told you only there was a place where people might talk about your product and 23 percent of the people who saw that conversation would be more likely to buy your product…would you think that was a good thing? I would. In fact, I’d very much want to find a way […]

by Jennifer Laycock
If you run an ecommerce site selling products that can also be found elsewhere, putting your price in your paid search ad could go a long way toward improving your conversion rates. That’s the point Jennifer Slegg makes in a post on pay per click conversion rates and ROI at her blog today. […]

by Jennifer Laycock
While search engines are pretty good at finding web sites and getting their content indexed, many site owners have no idea their web sites can be created in a way that looks good to people, but can’t be read by search engines. If your site is built entirely in Flash, relies too heavily […]

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

HP Promoting T-Shirts Promoting YouTube Videos, Yahoo Nixes “The 9,” Craigslist Reaching For $100 Million, Google Grants & More Given that we were unwittingly ensnared by Mike Blumenthal’s authentic sounding April Fools post […]

Given that we were unwittingly ensnared by Mike Blumenthal’s authentic sounding April Fools post earlier this week, we’re being a bit more careful and reading items more closely these days. However, one article from Bloomberg that almost reads like an April Fools item discusses a novel program on Google’s YouTube in which computer and printer […]

We’re very pleased that Microsoft’s Kevin Johnson and Google’s Matt Cutts will be featured presenters at Search Marketing Expo — SMX Advanced in Seattle June 3-4.
You can see the full SMX Advanced agenda here or click here to register. Or, keep reading to learn more about the keynotes.
Click to continue reading…

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Search has evolved from a way to address the fundamental challenges of finding a particular item, to become a method of finding the most relevant content out of a sea of possibilities. There are benefits for users, publishers, and advertisers to bring a social element to site search. Read Original Post Here
[…]

The debate on the need for SEO standards continues, with no clear industry-wide consensus. Without a doubt, however, your company should have SEO standards and guidelines that convey your company’s stance on SEO—namely, clearly spelling out acceptable practices and perhaps even more importantly, definitely drawing boundaries that cannot be breached regardless of whether they […]

As I wrote in last month’s column, video offers enormous opportunity for local SMBs to market online more effectively. Admittedly, some folks differ with that point of view. For example, one commenter wrote that “although the technology exists for businesses to deploy video online, SMBs can’t compete with big brands on creative work.” […]

It is no secret that human review has been playing a bigger role at Google over the past couple years. And we are emotional beings… no matter how logical the guidelines may be, emotions cause human errors. But not all sites that get penalized are penalized in error. Many deserve it.
Sadly, Google’s guidelines […]