Author Archive: Derek Edmond

Andy and I are excited to be a part of SEMPO’s hybrid training concept, which blends the material from their online course “Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing” with a one day class at Bentley College’s Center for Marketing Technology in Waltham, MA.

Our goal is to provide a complementary experience to the material found in the SEMPO course through the use of real world examples, applications and an overview of core concepts. In addition, hands-on exercises have been created to give beginners practical recommendations for applying ideas found in the course into their own search marketing campaigns.

Shaun Anderson just published his post interviewing 25 well known SEO people on the topic of Keyword Density (KD). In addition to some well thought out responses, there are a series of valuable resources for those interested in digging deeper into concepts like information retrieval and term - keyword weight.

While discussing these interviews with a colleague and recollecting a previous post I wrote on strategic keyword placement, it’s important to realize the following 3 points:

Last Friday, Techcrunch posted an announcement that Yahoo would be testing and integrating del.icio.us social bookmarking numbers directly into certain search results.

In addition to the traditional information users see (titles, search descriptions, URL etc), searchers may also see the number of people that bookmarked any given page and what tags they used to “describe” that page.

I’ve been a strong proponent of del.icio.us for quite a while but often neglected the “social” aspects of the tool in favor of other social news and bookmarking services (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc). If this move proves successful, it could become a major reason to use del.icio.us for more than just a personal bookmarking tool.

Even though social media is a hot topic, intelligent marketers are asking the question about social media’s value in comparison to their other online marketing endeavors. If you’re following the buzz, you’re already understanding the fact that success in social media is not as easy as initially perceived; it takes time, strategy and commitment. Your time investment in developing networks in social media communities and content for these networks has to be measured against your time requirements elsewhere.





If you are concerned with immediate ROI and definitively “track-able” results, this presents a quandary of sorts. How can you justify hours of social media brand building with the expectation that at some point, it’s going to generate measurable traffic and inbound links?

Digg is a social bookmarking site that allows people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Registered users can vote submissions up (”Digging” them) or down (the “Bury” feature) with a goal of collaborating (Digging) on what the best content is online. The most popular content appears on the home page of Digg.com as new stories and submissions are voted on by the community.

What that means for Website Marketers and Digg Users:

Even though the adoption of RSS is improving, many people still give us a look of uncertainty and confusion when the conversation about using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) arises. Here are a handful of things you need to know about RSS and why it may actually improve your experience (and marketing savvy) online.

• RSS is really about information
  Don’t let another acronym get in the way. There is no special coding or programming language you need to know to “get” RSS as a consumer of information. Just remember that RSS is an easy way for any website publisher to send/distribute information to the masses.

Heading from NYC last night, I started thinking about what I would tell the rest of my colleagues as it relates to how and what was learned from SMX Social Media.

Well here are some things that didn’t happen:

• I still don’t feel comfortable adding Danny Sullivan or Neil Patel to my Facebook network.
• No one gave me the social media “quick fix” idea that I thought would be worth risking my profile or IP getting banned in respective communities.

(…and you haven’t even had a sip of your morning coffee)

One of the intimidating factors businesses face when engaging in a social media strategy is the potential for negative press and/or the differing opinions that arise in relation to an expertise or strategy. Buzzing through the social media networks last Friday, I happened to see Hubspot’s Website Grader hitting Sphinn, specifically in reference to an article, “Why Website Grader is a Bad Idea“. Since KoMarketing Associates has worked with Hubspot on a joint strategy with one of our clients, I am aware of their products/web applications and naturally, the story caught my eye. Whether or not you agree with either party, the discussion shows why the people over at Hubspot are intelligent online marketers and what you can learn from the situation, particularly when your company, website or opinion is challenged with adversity online.

The folks at Closed Loop Marketing have a comprehensive post on optimization techniques for your blog strategy, covering everything from feed optimization to blog structure to posting techniques. While these recommendations all provide excellent opportunities for enhancing the user experience and getting visibility in relevant communities and locations, would-be bloggers need to consider how search engines like Google and Yahoo will react when they reach the blog and how their blog content will be crawled, understood and indexed.