You need to know: Drake Morton

Get Your Search House In Order

For The Holidays

by Stephen DiMarco , Friday, November 6, 2009

The numbers are in. The National Retail Federation (NRF) is, not surprisingly, predicting another dip in holiday spending in 2009, starting with an 1% drop in sales during the eighth-largest U.S. spending holiday, Halloween.  It’s a dismal outlook for marketers, but one that doesn’t have to leave us scratching our heads and biting our nails until the actual sales figures are reported.

Even with dour consumer spending and strained marketing budgets, smart marketers can adjust their marketing strategies to divert search traffic from rivals and gain an online competitive advantage. (more…)

Good Information: Drake Morton

And Now: The New News Regime

by Gord Hotchkiss , Thursday, October 8, 2009

This week, I moderated a session at SMX about real-time search. Personally, I find the convergence of social and search to be perhaps the most significant trend of 2009. Social adds an entirely new dimension to search. Traditionally search has been used to find “what” you wanted to know more about. Social adds the dimension of time. Suddenly, relevance isn’t the only measure. Search now needs a “stale date,” a measure of the freshness of the results.
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So much good information: Drake Morton

Optimizing For Natural And Paid Search,

After The Click

by Rob Garner , Wednesday, May 27, 2009

At the Search Insider Summit in Captiva, Fla., Gord Hotchkiss hosted a panel and clinic on eye-tracking analysis of Web sites suggested by attendees, specifically addressing the topic of post-click optimization.  This session preceded several related breakout discussions, including the “Branding and Post-Click Strategies” roundtable session that I moderated.
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The Four Immutable Principles Of Search

by Kaila Colbin , Tuesday, May 26, 2009
“It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.” — Bill Bryson
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Humorist Read : Drake Morton

Search Insider Summit Tweet-O-Meter

by Aaron Goldman , Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Another spring Search Insider Summit has come and gone. As always, the weather was hot, the conversations were warm, and the emcee was cool — so cool, in fact, that one attendee was overheard proclaiming, “Gord, you’re my hero!”

In my last column, I revisited the Buzz-O-Meter from past summits and offered my predictions for Top 10 buzzwords at this one. Since I was pretty close, I’m not going to spill much digital ink on explanations or context for this edition of SIS buzzword bingo. Instead, I’ll quickly recap the Top 10 and start a new tradition sharing additional Top 10 lists.
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Brand Mentions Preferred over Ads

APRIL 20, 2009

Young people especially receptive.

Want to get Internet users to visit your Website or follow your brand?

The best way to accomplish those tasks, according to ARAnet, based on polling by Opinion Research Corporation, may not be advertising.

Compared with banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers and sponsored links, articles that include brand information were most likely to lead US Internet users to read—and act.

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Are You Measuring Real Success?

by Todd Friesen , Friday, April 17, 2009

I’ve been doing SEO for 10 years now. I was there to witness the passing of Infoseek (RIP), Black Monday at AltaVista and the unstoppable rise of Google. In all that time and through all that change there is one thing that has remained constant and generally never ceases to amaze me.

People still have very little idea how to measure success online. There a few recurring scenarios that pop up all the time when I’m talking to potential clients about search marketing:
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Great SEO Tips: Drake Morton

5 Tips To Improve Ranking and

Increase Traffic

By: Mike Keller

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and has been an on and off topic of dialog since the dawn of search engines. More recently, free blogging sites such as Blogger and Word Press have brought website management directly into the hands of people delivering content without any prerequisite knowledge of HTML. While these blogging sites offer easy-to-use and robust services, they often leave something to be desired in terms of SEO, once again bringing the topic to the foreground of discussion. Here are a few simple things you can do to optimize your blog to improve your ranking and increase traffic (more…)

Keep In Mind!: Drake Morton

BT And Consumers: Transparency Crucial

To Gaining Trust 

by Phil Leggiere , Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Publishers and advertisers by now have internally devoted enormous investments in money, time and intellectual capital to behavioral targeting platforms. Yet when it comes to consumers themselves, most brands still like to pretend that behavioral targeting doesn’t exist, treating it like a secret vice to be locked away, hidden from the public that simply “can’t handle the truth.”

A study issued last week by Trust(e), an independent nonprofit online privacy advocacy organization, documents why that is precisely the wrong message for brands to be communicating. (more…)

Good Information: Drake Morton

Display Ads Lift Paid and Organic Search 155%

The presence of display advertising significantly affects click-through and search style across paid and organic searches and such ads can lift both types of search an average of 155%, according to a study by Specific Media, writes MarketingVox.

The study, which demonstrates a correlation between display advertising and search, finds that consumers exposed to display advertising are more likely than unexposed consumers to search for brand terms (such as “BMW” in the automotive category), and segment terms (such as “635 CSi”). (more…)