This Week’s Show

May 14, 2008

The Bruce Clay team has been attending a number of conferences recently. In our latest newsletter, Lisa Barone and Susan Esparza debated the benefits of attending both large and small conferences. With marketers facing the continuously evolving online space, attending training and conferences are vital investments. Along with staying up to date on trends, tools and methods, conferences and training are also great opportunities to network and increase brand awareness.

Then, the Bruce Clay IT Manager Aaron Landerkin sits down with Robert to talk about the role of IT at an SEO/SEM company and the unique challenges IT must meet in the marketing industry. As IT Manager, Aaron’s tasks include updating and managing tools and programming projects, checking the status of internal networks and servers, and creating custom tools and reports for analysts and clients. Aaron’s experience as an SEO has been helpful, but not required.

Finally the hosts discuss industry news. According to a Hitwise report on the most searched for brands of last year, it appears that Google is overcoming the address bar as far as navigation is concerned. One of the most searched for brands is YouTube, which has racked up 73 percent of the online video market. Requiring such a high amount of bandwidth, it makes our hosts wonder if YouTube is partly causing global warming… just kidding!

May 7, 2008
The end of April saw the latest SMX show, SMX Social Media Marketing Expo in Long Beach, CA. Our Bruce Clay blogger-extraordinaire Lisa Barone caught a bunch of the action and posted it to the Bruce Clay blog. Social media is fast on the rise, representing a big part of users’ time online.

According to Morgan Stanley’s recently released report on Internet trends, social sites have reached a 16 percent share of global online time. This is even more remarkable considering the category wasn’t even included in the report three years ago. With the recently-exploding prevalence of social sites, marketers need to get up to speed on the power of social media sites and the ways in which they can be used for marketing goals. SMX Social Media was full of sessions to help marketers utilize the opportunities presented by social media sites, and Bruce, Susan and Robert discuss some of those valuable lessons.

Also on the show is Adam Audette of AudetteMedia and moderator of the Internet marketing discussion list, LED Digest. Adam and Robert talk about the value of email discussion lists, the relevance of email marketing, and common mistakes companies make in their email marketing campaigns.

At the end of the show our hosts delve into the obstacles of staying competitive and relevant in the rapidly-evolving online environment. With the intense level of competition and the up-to-the-minute potential of updated content, the Internet provides unique challenges for marketers trying to stay on the cutting edge. Bruce, Robert and Susan talk about how often company and client material is updated and what avenues can be used in order to remain visible to your audience.

April 30, 2008
News of a new and improved Alexa Traffic Ranking system hit the Web this month. While Robert and Bruce don’t see Alexa Rankings regaining relevance for the industry, the overhaul is a much needed change for the often-inaccurate and easily-manipulated rankings provider. Also on the mind is how the depressed market has affected the search industry. Our hosts predict that the recession could see advertisers moving online for its high accountability.

Bruce speaks to our SEO Charity Contest winner Ryan Freeman. Ryan runs Strider Inc., a small business SEO firm in Toronto. He won the competition for his proposed organic SEO campaign for The Elisha Foundation. His business is focused on SEO for small businesses and non-profits because he likes to see them gain the visibility needed to compete in the market. Bruce and Ryan talk about the unique challenges of optimizing for small businesses.

Finally, our hosts preview some of the sessions at the upcoming eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Francisco. The conference has been around since 2002 and focuses on technologies and methodologies of measuring site success. Best practices and the benefit of analytics is looked at in detail.

April 23, 2008
Following the ad:tech conference in San Francisco, Susan gives us a rundown of the sessions she attended and the hot discussion points of the week. For session by session coverage of ad:tech, visit the Bruce Clay blog. Susan covered sessions on branding, online video, local and mobile search, multicultural marketing, acquisition and retention strategies, and much more.

Bruce will also be speaking to Jim Sterne, founding president of the Web Analytics Association and the host of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, coming up in San Francisco in May. Jim gives listeners a basic understanding of how Web Analytics can help your site, the metrics tools available to webmasters, and of course, what to look forward to at eMetrics.

With Web Analytics on the mind, the hosts discuss some of the latest Analytics headlines. The new Google Analytics benchmarking feature allows users to compare their site’s data to others in their industry or other industries. But it also raises concerns about data privacy and the integrity of the opt-in data sharing policy. Yahoo!’s acquisition of IndexTools stands out for the way it might allow the search engine to compete with Google in providing high-quality free or low-cost Analytics.

April 16, 2008
Hosts Bruce Clay, Robert Esparza and Susan Esparza introduce you to the brand new WebmasterRadio show SEM Synergy. For some time now, Bruce Clay, Inc. has wanted to launch a show that discusses how SEO, PPC, branding, design and analytics are all parts of a much larger whole. In our experience, a multi-faceted Internet marketing campaign will be exponentially more successful than a campaign that employs only one aspect. In adding to the conversation, we look forward to expert guests coming on the show to give their insight on a variety of Internet marketing aspects.

At ad:tech San Francisco, many of these aspects are sure to gain attention, such as online video, local and mobile search, and branding in advertising. Susan will be liveblogging a number of sessions, so be sure to check out the Bruce Clay blog for all the highlights.

Finally, our hosts will spend some time covering the latest industry headlines. Google has been dominating the news with the dancing SERPs of the Dewey update, its intent to sell off the Performics search marketing company, and its whopping share of the online advertising market through the DoubleClick acquisition.

Be sure to check out all the SEM Synergy action with Bruce Clay on WebmasterRadio at noon PST Wednesday, April 16.