On September 25, Ken Jurina, Co-Chair Of SEMPO Canada Search Marketing Association, will be on a panel of Search Marketing Experts to present a session called Search Marketing for Dummies: Everything you need to know about Starting your own Search Marketing campaign from people who eat, sleep and breathe Search Marketing. Martin Byrne, National Director, Yahoo! Canada will also be on the pannel. This is session is part of the Massive Technology Show at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton, Alberta.

And here is more about the Massive Technology Show:
The Massive Technology Show is a three-part, interactive forum that showcases technology to the general business community. This one day event connects business professionals with high tech companies, offering them a chance to learn about new technologies for business in a user friendly environment.

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6 years ago, I was starting my Back to Basics Search Marketing seminars with the top 10 mistakes in developing an online presence. I have not presented this seminar in a long time but I realize that I should because business people are still clueless on how to allocate their funds in developing their online business. Here are the common mistakes: 

• 94% of companies are losing money with their sites because they are invisible in search results
• 97% of Fortune 100 companies do not market their websites and consequently lose millions in potential sales
• Business owners are not aware how to make their websites search engines friendly
• Business owners trust their web designers / tech people to take care of their Search Marketing but those people don’t care about getting more traffic / generating more sales
• Most companies pay 95% too much for their hosting plans: they don’t know how much they should be paying considering their traffic level
• Most companies ignore the real cost of maintaining their sites: they lose precious time and money because they fail to effectively promote them
• Most companies are unaware of the traffic level they should be getting if they were marketing their sites properly
• Most companies invest their marketing dollars in efforts that do not produce good ROI (Return on investment)
• Business owners don’t realize they are publishing their brochures (online) and thus they fail to « distribute » them
• Most business owners don’t take time to learn about making more money from the Web

If you see yourself in any of these common mistakes, you are not alone. But, if you want to do something about it, feel free to get in touch with me. Stepping out of the invisible web is quite an experience.

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I noticed recently that more than 50% of the people visiting my site are Firefox users. So here is something you are going to like. Being an avid user of Firefox myself, I just want to share one of the great SEO tools you can use with it. It is called SEO for Firefox. I came a cross this SEO for Firefox introduction video which you may find helpful to understand what it does.

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I have been wanting to talk to you about this Futurelab article for a long time. It reminds me of the day I was working for an ad agency myself and we were pitched on the great value of placing banner ads on Canada.com for one of our clients. Since I have never been a fan of banners ads, or any kind of online ads for that matter because everybody I talk to hate them or ignore them, I ask the rep this simple question: What is it that you did to generate that much traffic to Canada.com? The rep answered without hesitation that they have been working heavily on generating good content, optimizing the site for search engines, implementing link exchange programs and so on. I ask: Have you ever done some form of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to generate traffic to your site? Hell no! We get all our traffic for free from the organic side of search results. So, have you purchased any banner ads to promote your site then? Are you crazy! This is way too expensive and the ROI is not there. You see where I am going here… The Ad Agency model is no different than this scenario and is full of disconnects that do not make any sense.

Here is an excerpt from the article that I love:

TIP 2: DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF
“Here’s a challenge.  Look at any list of major international agencies and tell me in one word how each truly differentiates itself in the marketplace.  If you can get beyond half a dozen unique value propositions, I want to talk to you ‘cause I ain’t seein’ them.  Everyone has large networks, everyone is creative, everyone has the best people and everyone has a bunch of awards on their wall.

Now look at this from a client’s perspective.  Here’s an industry which claims to advise brands on how to differentiate themselves in the market place, yet can’t get beyond bland whiter than white rethoric itself.

Rather than chase every budget-dollar through a middle-of-the-road positioning, agencies should clearly state what they are about and live by it.  Clients should be made to love the agency brand or hate it, yet not even contemplate the commodity purchasing indifference they display today. After all, if you can’t make your own agency stand out in the crowd, how do you expect your customers to ever take you seriously if you claim you can do it for them?”

It is brilliant. There are 7 Tips for Ad Agency Survival in the article. Please make sure you read it and stop wasting your money on the archaic advertising model unsupported by key success metrics.

If you want to learn more about how I can help you generate more revenues from core online marketing tactics, such as Search Marketing, feel free to contact me. 

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Everytime I talk about the self-organizing unconference BarCamp Vancouver and invite people to join, they have this glaze on their face. I often say, BarCamp is all about sharing and is lot of fun. Of course a lot of non-geek people would be wondering how geeky stuff can be fun, especially for a 24 hours period. I was not there for the opening “ceremony” of BarCamp Vancouver 2007 on Saturday morning but I came across this video on adhack which will give you a good idea about what it is, the energy of its people and the common passion Barcampers share.  It is animated by the excellent Darren Barefoot, chief blogger: (Note: it is the second part within this video, so use the arrows as you would to select a scene)

BarCamp Vancouver will come back again next year I am sure, so stay tuned. In the meantime, feel free to check Democamp Vancouver, Artcamp Vancouver, which is next week September 08 2007, & Casecamp Vancouver. 

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Alexa ranking is a great tool. I use it all the time to monitor my Clients’ traffic progress as well as my own. Because it is monitored daily, a small increase in traffic, measured in visitors and page views, will be sufficient to modify your Alexa ranking dramatically. 

Here is the definition of what it does: Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview. The site with the highest combination of users and pageviews is ranked #1.

So, sites who have the most traffic have the lowest Alexa Ranking. Right now, the top 10 are occupied by Yahoo.com, Google.com, YouTube.com and others:

Here are the top Sites in Canada.

Since I launch my search marketing blog 6 months ago, My Alexa ranking went from 1,2 Million to 395,188. This is simply because my blog helped attract more visitors. As a comparison with other local companies you might know, Livelinks.com is 312,623, Techvibes.com is 111,708. The Georgia Straight (straight.com) is 61,341. DarrenBarefoot.com has an Alexa ranking of 74,401. Now, if you have an Alexa ranking of 1Million or more, you really have to start doing something about it. Since this is public information, your competitors know about it and can easily guess your traffic level. Therefore, I think this is a strong argument to get the ball rolling on a search marketing plan. 

Take a minute to check your Alexa ranking today and set a reminder to do the same every month. Making progress on this side is exciting and keeps you motivated to continue climbing not only the positions in search results but also the long ladder consisting of all the other websites within your category.

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And here again another cool introduction video from Lee Lefever from Commocraft. This one is a wiki tutorial, what it is and why we should use it. Just like the other videos he made, this one is really well done and is worth sharing around. If you don’t know much about Wikis, you should absolutely view this:

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When I started to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the year 2000, it took between 3 to 4 months before the index (index definition) was updated and the changes were visible in search results. That was considered very good at the time. A few years later, we saw the introduction of what is now known as the Google Dance (not the party that’s happening this week at Search Engine Strategies San Jose, the actual update of the index). Just in case you did not know, the Google Dance is an informal term that was created to explain the phenomenon of frequent shifts in rankings while Google updates its database. Over the years, some Google Dances were more popular than others, but the good news is that these days are gone with the new real time indexing.

So, 2 weeks ago, I stumble upon one of my own blog posts by accident, trying different search query combinations on the same theme. Just messing around with the Google index really. I could not believe I could see it in search results only a few minutes after I posted it. A few days later, I did it on purpose to show you this example:

A few days prior to Barcamp Vancouver 2007 last week, a lot of Vancouver bloggers were posting info to make sure everybody knows the details about the event. There were also a few housekeeping items we needed to pass around to participants. Check this out, I took a snapshot to show how long ago they have been posted:

For a Search Marketer, this is big news. We can blog about something that’s happening tomorrow and we know for sure our stuff will be live before the event. As you can imagine, this is especially important for timely information. Therefore, real time indexing reinforces the need for companies to build better sites with fresh content. Stale sites will quickly end up in what is called the invisible web. Google has never deviated from its general guidelines for fresh content. Googlers just gave us another good reason to do so.

If you want to know more about Google real time indexing, please read Google Matt Cutts’s blog on Minty Fresh Indexing.

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I came across this job posting which sounds interesting. I just want to share it around. I am always puzzled when I see acronyms like SEM and SEO side by side in a job title though because the SEM expression includes all the SEO initiatives. Therefore, SEM is not equivalent to Pay per Click (PPC) as most people might think. SEM includes all the search marketing initiatives: paid and non-paid search strategies.  Anyway, here is the job with the contact info:

Our client is a highly prestigious organization that is one of Canada’s top Advertising and Public Relations companies. They are currently seeking a Director of Search Engine Management/Search Engine Optimization. If you would like to join one of Canada’s leading firms, please contact The Personnel Department at 604-685-3530 or email your resume to permanent{at}goodstaff{dot}com

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Techvibes with Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications and Christine & Tzaddi of Bluelime Media have been collaborating and launched last week the Techcouver.com site (and promotional 6″ x 9″ maps) just in time for Saturday’s Barcamp Vancouver 2007. The feedback was positive all around.

Inspired by Montreal Tech Watch’s Map of the Web, Techcouver will be a series of maps highlighting Vancouver’s technology industry on Translink’s zone map. The theme of the first map is Web 2.0 and they have included 22 local companies that they have identified as worthy.

They know that often start-ups are under the radar, so if you think you should be included, be sure to click on the Get On The Map link and let them know.

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This past weekend at Barcamp Vancouver James from adhack wrangled a session called Zero to 30 Seconds in Less than 1 Hour or So You Think You Can Make an Ad?. I thought the title was clever but I did not think we could actually make it within that time frame. He was adamant. This was a pretty ambitious plan. Is it possible to make an ad in 60 minutes? Yes it is!

During that session, which was by far the funniest one during Barcamp, we separated the class of 20 people in 3 groups. Each group was equiped with a laptop (with video and photo editing softwares) and a digital camera. The goal was to take any product or service that we had access to within Workspace (the physical office space we were during Barcamp) and make an ad with it. It is Do It Yourself (DIY) advertising. Since we had dozens of empty and near empty pizza boxes along with actual pizza slices of all kinds from Uncle Fatih’s pizza, I thought that was the most appropriate choice. So, we all started to make an ad for Uncle Fatih’s, a very popular pizza place in the Commercial Drive area. After 15-30 minutes of idea generation, there was only 15 minutes left to execute the ad. We had to choose whether we would do a video ad or a picture. Then, 10 minutes later, we came up with this:

The other groups came up with different concepts. Please find them here. 

That was an ambitious plan but we pulled it through. I can’t wait to do this exercise again. It is way more fun in groups than the individual work. Stay tuned for other Adhack sessions.

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It took a few rounds of iterations but we finally finished it. Ken Jurina and I completed a 5 Question article/interview that has just been published on Onedegree.ca. It presents our current and future initiatives to foster awareness and stimulate the growth of search marketing in Canada through our work with SEMPO Canada. Read about it here.

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As you might know, last weekend was Barcamp Vancouver 2007. Much like last year’s Barcamp, this year showed a great variety of presentations and sessions on all kinda of topics ranging from social media, tagging, drupal, CMS, Photo camp and so on. I had a chat yesterday with Lee Lefever from Commoncraft.com on the creation and publication of Online Video Tutorials. He mentioned about his latest videos in plain english which give an introduction to different web topics. They are really well done which and worth sharing. One of the most recent ones is titled, Social Bookmarking in Plain English. If you don’t know much about Social Bookmarking, you have to view this.

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Work Industries posted a message this week that all barcampers should read. Essentially, since this year’s Barcamp is heavily overbooked, everyone who participate/attend Barcamp 2007 this weekend must confirm their name on the list. If you’re not sure you’re coming, please strike out your name and post the name of the top person left on the waiting list in your former place.

If you’re on the waiting list, are you sure you’re available to come? If not, please cross out your name. If you’re still keen on coming, check back on the list to see if you’ve been added to the first 120.

We don’t mean to be too anal about this. We just want to make sure that all the people that want to be there and can be there do get to be there.

Also, with regards to the Barcamp T-Shirts, I hope this isn’t true, but apparently the T-Shirts are fuschia (!) this year. They have 120 Barcamp T-Shirts and they go out on a first-com first serve basis. I’d better be there soon then

Finally, althought Barcamp has a lot of sponsors, the Barcamp organizing committee is suggesting a donation of $20 for each T-Shirt, to finance all the unconference activities. Any monies left over will be rolled into financing next year’s proceedings.

Please pass the message around to all barcampers.

For Questions, please communicate with James Sherrett: james{at}adhack{dot}com

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I love airshows and yet I haven’t seen one in years. I think I was 9 years old the last time I had a chance to see the Snowbirds. The whole family was in Quebec City and we waited for 2 hours before they finally show up. When you are a kid, 2 hours seem like a month! So now, being grown up and all, I did not even know what to expect but I decided to take a road trip to Abbotsford for the well known Abbotsford Airshow. It was the 45th edition so everything was in place for a lovely afternoon.

I have to admit, between the current Canadian & US AirForce planes and their historic equivalents laying on the ground, the air show was definitely the most interesting part. And yes, the snowbirds were there, I was thrilled like the last time I saw them. Seriously, they are great. They made a heart in the sky with exhaust smoke on a Celine Dion’s song. So nice. To tell you the truth, I am rarely patriotic about Canada but the sequence where they made a pass with the Diamond Formation was absolutely spectacular. The picture was quite nice too:

I have some more. You can find all my pictures of the Abbotsford Airshow on my Picasa account.

That was for the sweet part. Concurrently during the same event though, armed army officers are walking around their army vehicles and dozens of information booths to recruit new Canadian forces personnel. They were giving away inflatable sticks that kids were beating each another with. I understand the concept of sponsors for that kind of events and the connection between the planes and the Canadian army. But, it is absolutely necessary to teach kids how to use guns during these events? Is it just me who finds it odd? Check it out, I took some pictures that are quite revealing:

The Abbotsford Airshow is a family event and I have serious reserve with regards to the relevance of having that many Canadian forces information booths, with guns that kids can try. And oh, I almost forgot, every 15 minutes, you could hear the sound of a real machine gun. Very entertaining. That deserves an adhack. 

Yeah, I know. It has nothing to do with search. But this topic is important enough to mention. Comments are welcome. 

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