Cameron Olthuis

Chris, from 97th Floor did some nice research on the Google results for Fortune 100 companies. He found that 29 of these 100 companies have at least one negative result that shows up on the first page of Google when you search the brand name.

That’s a pretty pathetic statistic if you are one of these companies. There’s really no excuse for any of these guys not to have a perfect 10 on their results. Like Chris, I’m surprised more companies aren’t doing something to fix this.

I spoke at OMMA last week on a panel about social media sites affecting search results. One of the points I really tried to get across was that brands need to be doing more reputation management to control their search results. My point was that social media sites have a lot of authority in the SERPs so all that user generated content has a better chance on making it’s way to the top.

I used Comcast for an example because the night before when I googled their name two negative results showed up, both from social media. Coincedently those results are now gone from the first page, maybe someone from Comcast was in the audience.

** BTW – Serph is out of beta so you now you can catch your Google top 10 before it’s a problem.

Update: Last.fm’s chart looks good…

Last year I wrote a couple of posts on how getting on TechCrunch isn’t a viable marketing plan. While a TechCrunch write up can certainly be a great kick-start to your marketing campaign, by no means is that traffic spike alone going to make your company a success.

A good comparison would be getting on the homepage of Digg. They will both result in a huge spike in traffic, attention from key people, a few sign ups, and a bunch of links from other bloggers but the problem is that after a few days you’re back where you started. Ok, so maybe you have a little more traction but it won’t be enough so you need to keep moving forward. Unless you have a solid PR strategy and this will be an ongoing campaign you need to have a more well rounded marketing strategy, one that results in a graph that is up and to the right, not spikes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lee Odden posted a great list of must read marketing blogs. I would add one to the list, Eradicate Perplexity, a brand new blog from my friend Scott Orth. I had the chance to get to know Scott at SES Chicago, he’s a very smart SEO and I’m sure you’ll be hearing his name a lot this year.

Update: I didn’t realize Scoreboard Media was missing from Lee’s list. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. Read a couple posts and you’ll see why, the style of writing is second to none. Lee, if you reading this take a look, you’ll like it.

Todd has been on a roll lately with one good post after another. One of the posts that really caught my attention was the SEO Marketing Manifesto. All 10 of the points Todd lays out are great but I wanted to bring special attention to #7.

7. Social media can be optimized
Optimization does not mean manipulation. Optimization is examining the rules of the game and using them to your advantage. Social media increases both exposure – as well as the level of public scrutiny. People appreciate when bias is disclosed, and conversation is HUMAN.

The other day I came across this other post from Brian Oberkirch, where he says there’s no such thing as Social Media Optimization. I obviously disagree with Brian and have been wanting to post a reply for a couple days now. Once I saw Todd’s post I figured I would just quote what he said because I don’t think I can say it any better myself.

I don’t think Brian understands the concept of SMO, just like he doesn’t understand SEO.

You drag that bullshit practice of SEO into the social media world

I realize a lot of people hate SEOs and it’s obviously the few bad eggs that we can blame for this. But the people making the accusations are also to blame because they don’t do the research to understand what they are really talking about. SEO is by no means a “bullshit practice”, in my opinion you’re a “bullshit marketer” if you really think that and ignore search.

When we say that we optimize sites for social media that doesn’t mean we spam it. It just means we fine tune it. That can mean something as simple as improving usability or something such as creating viral content.

A few months ago the SEO world had its panties in a bunch with the news that Danny Sullivan was no longer going to be a part of Search Engine Strategies or Search Engine Watch.

Today, Danny announced that he worked out an agreement with Incisive to stick around another year. While he’s still leaving Search Engine Watch at least Danny will a part of SES for one more year. He’s also planning a couple events of his own and a new search blog. Congrats Danny!

One potential problem with social search could be in the long tail. If the majority of searches are only performed a couple of times there won’t be enough human participation to make for good results.

Social search is already occuring on Google but people are “voting” with clicks instead of knowingly, and Google can even do this with the long tail.

What do other people think of this?

Danny Sullivan is leaving Search Engine Watch and most likely the Search Engine Strategies conference series as well. This news is creating quite the buzz around the web.

First let me echo what many have already said; Incisive Media is pretty much retarded for not moving mountains to keep Danny around. Search Engine Watch and SES are what they are because of Danny.

As the “Godfather” of search, Danny has played a big role in shaping our entire industry to what it has become today. I wish Danny the best of luck wherever this new path takes him. He will undoutably be successful and the industry will gladly follow wherever he goes.