what is search marketing

Search engine optimization is THE most cost effective way for a company to market their products and services. Below are 5 extremely valuable search engine optimization tips:

1. Content is Key

Webmasters are extremely concerned with optimizing their code and as a result, they often forget about optimizing the content. As optimization tips go, this is one you should pay close attention to. The first 200 words of your home page should be loaded with keywords, this includes your headline. Some search engines, particularly those that ignore meta tags, will actually use the first few lines of text (including the headline) as your site description.

2. Utilize Static HTML

You don t need a dynamic website unless you have dynamic content, such as airline seat availability and pricing which needs to be dynamically published from a database because it constantly changes. You may store your website in a database but you re better off publishing it as a static HTML website. It s cheaper, the pages will download faster, and search engines will find it easier to comprehensively index your website.

The less HTML code you have, the better, as it makes it easier and faster for the search engine to index your page. Aim for a total page weight of 50 KB for any page (that s including graphics). Certainly, anything over 100 KB is going to be slow, and some search engines don t like pages that are over 100 KB.

3. The Title Tag is Critical

The title tag is the single most important piece of content for people who search. Keep it short: Don t have more than 60 characters (with spaces), which is roughly 8-10 words. Lead with the most important careword for that particular page. Always start off with what is specific about the page and move to what is general. Many websites begin their title with their brand or organization name, and then follow with what is unique about the page. (This is a very common mistake, so check out your website.)

4. Optimize Your Images

This is another optimization tip that many people forget about. However, through use of your “alt” image attribute tag, you can slip in an extra keyword phrase or two that describes the picture users are about to see. The text only shows up when the user has turned off the ‘view images’ option in their browser or the image fails to load. But some search engine robots will pick it up too and the extra keywords could help your ranking. So take a few seconds to implement this optimization tip on your site and you could see improved results soon.

5. Why You Shouldn’t Optimize Your Own Site

While we have given you some basic optimization tips to help you quickly boost your search engine ranking, we still recommend that you hire a Search Engine Optimization professional for the best results. Search engines change their guidelines regularly, making it impossible for any one or two people to stay on top of all the changes while still running their business. What was a great optimization tip yesterday, could get your site blacklisted today. Your SEO professional will watch over your site as if it was our own, ensuring your site is always running in peak form. For example, we predicted many of the guideline changes Google made in November of 2003, saving many of our customers from the massive fall in rankings most experienced.

About the Author

Carmen is the VP Client Relations of Ms. SEO Inc., a Calgary based Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing Company.

Ms. Seo Inc. works with their sister company Ms. Hype Inc., a Calgary Web Design Company, to offer their clients a powerful online presence.

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Six months ago, I was a very different person. SEO was something I knew little about (I still do not claim to have above a beginner’s understanding), and I was running an OS that I did not care for.

Then one day, after struggling with a lousy driver install and a Lexmark printer (Die!! Lexmark…DIE!!!), I said some rather foul words and went to the Ubuntu website, intending to dual boot. I didn’t pay any attention to what I was doing, and promptly wiped my hard drive (because I can be a stubborn know-it-all, not because Ubuntu is difficult to install).

Oh well, that’s what backups are for… 

Yeah, so I converted to Linux, and while I am not sold on the whole "Everyone should run Linux" mantra, I do recommend it for people who are generally technically savvy (e.g. SEOmoz readers).

The question then becomes "What do I use to replace my old apps, and how is Linux a good tool for SEO?"

I will list these below, and tell you my experience with each. (Note: my current web page is under redesign, so don’t think that I used these tools for the current version of my site. My current site is UGLY - and you will probably think it is worse. The new version using these tools will be markedly better… promise!)  

With most search engines, if not all, being run on a LAMP server, it would probably behoove us to to learn the ways of Linux.

An excellent article on these methods has been written here.  

Maybe you don’t prefer to learn a command line, but those of you who are in love with analytics should find plenty of minutiae to keep you occupied. In addition, the command line is quite powerful, and should you find the need to edit a large amount of static content, it will be quite useful to you.

Fortunately, most SEO tools are platform independent and browser-based, and are available on this very site. Design software is so much more expensive, and besides, you need those two 30" LCDs to improve your productivity.

To that end, I have compiled the following list:

Browsers:

• Windows: IE, Firefox, Opera, Lynx

• Linux: IEs4 Linux, Firefox, Opera, Lynx, Galleon, Konqueror, Gecko….ad infinitum

Testing for every browser under the sun improves your code, and the understanding of what you are actually doing. Not that any of these esoteric browsers will ever catch on, but in the off chance you end up optimizing for a Linux website (think Slashdot, Ubuntu, Linux foundation), you may at least want to be familiar with them. 

Web Design and Development:

• Windows: Dreamweaver

• Linux: Kompozer, Quanta, Screem (Based on Quanta), Scite

Kompozer is a great WYSIWYG option, with an easy to use CSS styling tab. One of its current faults (and this may be fixable via the Preferences) is that the CSS tab opens in a separate window, and you have to move it around to see what is happening to your page beneath.

Quanta is excellent, as it allows you to collapse your <div>s and see only the one you are working on. It also allows for testing in a ton of different browsers, and many other features that I haven’t even explored yet. It’s pretty vast. An excellent development environment. 

Screem: I prefer Quanta, but Screem has a more user-friendly interface.

Scite: Supports Ruby, Perl, and <insert language of choice here>. 

Graphics:

• Windows: Photoshop, Fireworks

Linux: GIMP, Inkscape

The new GIMP is now available, powerful, and way better looking.  It has been a real joy editing creating graphics for the new site. If you prefer the familiarity of Photoshop, you can get GIMPshop, which gives you a Photshop UI over the GIMP engine. Nice. 

I have used Inkscape once or twice, and found it to be an excellent SVG editor.  The downside is that .ai files are supported. This should be fixed in an upcoming release. 

Multimedia: 

• Too many to mention, but here are a few : Kaffeine, FFmpeg, Audacity, Kdenlive

There is a good reason why Linux has been known to attract software pirates: Somebody has written a plugin for every known type of media on the planet. If it’s an obscure, inane, and overall useless file format, chances are you can turn it into something usable in Linux.

Audacity has been one of my favorites for a couple years now, and I believe it is now available in both MAC and Windows. 

The programs mentioned above have a relatively low learning curve, with the exception of the command-line based FFmpeg. There are tons of UIs that are made specifically for that library. Yes, there is support for .flv

What if I still want to keep Windows? 

Well, you could always dual-boot and/or install WINE . That way, you can keep your Adobe CS3 Suite and only use those other tools when necessary. 

Look, I know we all want to think about our OS as little as possible, but it’s time we started thinking. We should know how our OS works, why it works, and why we choose it. Does Linux have the most robust suite of tools right now?

The answer is no. There are a ton of niche tools that allow you to do whatever you feel is necessary to get your job done. If there isn’t a tool, you can request an add-on, and someone may build it for you.

Hopefully, this has helped you. If you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments. I’m new to this whole FOSS thing, and there are plenty of great tools that I’m sure are still undiscovered.

Signing off for now…

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Source: www.seomoz.org

Your Questions Answered

Posted by randfish

I’ve gotten a few emails asking if I’d be willing to do a blog post thread similar to Shoemoney’s Ask Questions & Get Answers series. I’ve actually been meaning to put this up earlier, but keep running into other posts I’d like to author.

So, today, feel free to leave any questions in the comments below regarding:

• SEOmoz’s Business
• The Website
• Anything to do with SEO or Internet Marketing in General
• My Background or Personal Life
• Other mozzers

I can’t promise that I’ll tackle every question, and I may try to request clarifications in the comments. My goal would be to close this thread sometime tomorrow night and answer the questions then, for release on Friday.

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Niche TV: I am Famous, Are You Next?

Posted by wethead

So - did the title get your attention?

Cool, because the rest will be even better.

I am not really "famous," but maybe a tad bit in my own niche. Also, please note that this is a true story and I am really the one in my videos. I thought this worked so well that I wanted to share with the "Moz family."

What’s this post about?

This is a step by step guide on how I increased my readership and earnings as well as built some nice back links, while providing a great user experience with no money out of pocket.

You will be creating your OWN NICHE TV station

Things you will need

1) Digital camera or video camera (Don’t say you don’t know anyone without one, find someone)
2) A friend to act or hold the camera for you
3) Something to show someone (i.e., stick within your niche; it just works better)
4) A small list of videos or episodes you would like to create (save those ideas while there still fresh)

Side Note: Everyone has a niche, whether it’s cooking, cleaning, sewing , or simply magic tricks or something funny.
Step One
Now what you do is spend a few minutes with your friend and go over what you will be doing on video so you don’t mess up too much You can see my outtakes here. It’s kinda funny, if you ask me. Also notice how adding music to your videos will make them more enjoyable. They actually study and use methods like this for shoppers, although do you ever hear that music while you shop?

Okay - getting back on topic…
Once you decide on what you will be taping, you start the camera and take your footage. Please note it is okay if you mess up: just keep taping. I will show you how to fix that next!

Step Two
Now that you have your footage, you can upload it the way it is if you feel it came out right. If you do need to edit your video, you can do it a few different ways:

• Windows Movie Maker is a program that’s free, and you can do all kinds of good stuff
• It only takes a few minutes to learn Sony Vegas Movie Maker (this program is not free but does have a 30-day trial version that is available for download right on the web)

With the above programs, you can add background noise, fade frames, and all that good stuff you see on videos. It’s really not that hard to do.

Step Three:
Now that you have your videos ready, edited, all the effects are done, and you are 100% satisfied with your videos, it’s now time to get them live and on the web. For this, I recommend YouTube.

Why YouTube? It’s easy, it’s free, it’s simple. They also have a large audience, if you haven’t noticed, and that gives you the potential to receive more video views.

Step Four: 
Add the section to your website. You can see how I did it here. Once you have your videos on YouTube, it’s quite easy to upload them to your site and start getting people to watch them. There are many places from which you can get a lot of free traffic with videos. If you are not sure where, just post here and I can help you, depending on your niche. 

Some Notes and tips:
1) Create a video that is friendly and makes people comfortable. Trying to brand it with an overdose of a corporate structure will just bore your audience. It is simple things like outtakes, a word slip, or even real laughing and talking that make people connect. Talking like a robot will not get you more video views. Remember, we are all human, and like to interact as such.

2) Don’t read this post and say "Wethead, you are wacked." Go out and make some videos. Spend 10 minutes a day and you will notice that after a week you will have a complete video. Maybe you will get excited like I do and work all night, having it done in hours; who knows.

3) I have noticed over the last few weeks while I study my analytics that my videos are being watched, and in turn lowering my overall bounce rate. They also attract lazy people that don’t like to read!

4) Don’t worry about whether people will watch. Think to yourself how many times you watch a video because someone says, "Hey, watch this!" People just love videos.

5) Remember that it will take time to create a perfect on screen appearance. You may feel like it will take forever, but it won’t. The more you get in front of the camera, the better you will become.

6) YouTube is your friend. I stressed that above and I will again. You can gain even more branding power with YouTube, so make sure you use it for your videos!

Conclusion:
So, to bring this long post to a close, just think to yourself: If some random pool guy from upstate New York can get excited and make pool videos, then so can you! Why just limit yourself to boring text? They say a picture is worth a thousand words; what’s a video worth?

Please feel free to comment , or ask me any questions you like, and I hope this will help you get some more traffic and more readers to your site! Lastly, this post was inspired by Whiteboard Friday. One day I started to watch the "Moz Tube" and got hooked, and now look at me: I just spent two hours writing this! Just more proof the video thing works!

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Source: www.seomoz.org

Closing Thoughts on SMX Social Media 2007

Posted by rebecca

I’m back in Seattle after a short trip to NYC for SMX Social Media. I live-blogged a couple of sessions on Tuesday and tried to live blog the "Evangelist - The Marketer’s Role in SMM" session, but I lost my post before I published it. (And no, I didn’t save it. Yes, I am dumb.) I did cover Rand and Liana Evans’ presentations for the Micro Communities session for Search Engine Land, plus there are lots of other recaps there and throughout the web.

I think that overall the conference was a success, especially considering it’s the first conference I’ve been to that was explicitly dedicated to social media tips and tactics. Most of the sessions were quite interesting and engaging, with only a couple of presentations that felt a bit overlapping. I got a lot of positive feedback on my presentation, with people telling me that I "woke them up," which I relish in a bit more knowing that Rand spoke before I did. Take that, boss! (Note: I’m joking. Presenting first thing in the morning sucks. I’ve done it before, and the audience is pretty stiff, so I’m thankful I didn’t get Rand’s slot. He did get some laughs and kudos, and I am of the opinion that he’s definitely a helluva better speaker than I am.)

Anyway, I thought the keynote Q&A with Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us and Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon was a bit disappointing–it felt more like a tutorial on how to use their sites and less like honest, valuable feedback for attendees and the questions they posed. I really hate when company spokespeople answer questions with "We’ll look into that" or "We can’t tell you right now, but it’s something I can research," etc.

A friend of mine felt that the conference was great for marketers who haven’t yet gotten into social media but not as valuable for those who already do social media marketing and want more advanced or expert tips, and I agree with her. A lot of the sessions (mine included) were a great overview of why certain social media approaches (link bait, bookmarking, social media news sites, etc) are valuable to your marketing and branding campaigns. For future social media-centric conferences, I would really like to see more specific or advanced sessions thrown in with the "An Introduction to Such and Such" panels.

I have to close by saying that I am extremely proud of my good friend and fellow lady in SEO, Tamar Weinberg. Danny made her speak on the "Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites" panel virtually against her will. I know how nervous she was, but clearly the audience deduced that she knows her stuff because every time I saw her she was answering an attendee’s questions about social media tactics. I bet she snagged a ton of business cards. Way to go, Tamar–you’ve certainly made a name for yourself in the past year, and I’m very happy and excited for you.

If you attended SMX Social Media, I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions. What did you like? What didn’t you like? What would you like to see more of for the next conference? What would you like to see that’s new? How gross was it that while I was in NY my allergies rendered one of my nostrils completely plugged up and the other one inexplicably mucus-free? Did I actually just type that?

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Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide: Part II - How People Interact with Search Engines

Posted by randfish

For the next few weeks, my blog posts will primarily consist of re-authoring and re-building the Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here.

How People Interact with Search Engines

One of the most important elements to building an online marketing strategy around SEO and search rankings is feeling empathy for your audience. Once you grasp how the average searcher, and more specifically, your target market, uses search, you can more effectively reach and keep those users.

Search engine usage has evolved over the years, but the primary principles of conducting a search remain largely unchanged. Below, I’ve listed the steps that comprise most search processes:

1. Experience the need for an answer, solution, or piece of information
2. Formulate that need in a string of words and phrases (the query)
3. Execute the query at a search engine
4. Browse through the results for a match
5. Click on a result
6. Scan for a solution, or a link to that solution
7. If unsatisfied, return to the search results and browse for another link OR
8. Perform a new search with refinements to the query

When this process results in the satisfactory completion of a task, a positive experience is created, both with the search engine and the site providing the information or result. Since the inception of web search, the activity  has grown to heights of great popularity, such that in December of 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project (PDF Study in Conjunction with ComScore) found that 90% of online men and 91% of online women used search engines. Of these, 42% of the men and 39% of the women reported using search engines every day and more than 85% of both groups say they "found the information they were looking for."

When looking at the broad picture of search engine usage, fascinating data is available from a multitude of sources. I’ve extracted those that are recent, relevant, and valuable, not only for understanding how users search, but in presenting a compelling argument about the power of search (which I suspect many readers of this guide may need to do for their managers):

• An April 2006 study by iProspect & Jupiter Research (PDF) found that:
  • 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, 90% within the first three pages. This is higher than in 2004, when 60% chose results on the first page, and much higher than 2002, when only 48% did.
  • 41% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they seek report changing their search term and/or search engine if they do not find what they’re looking for on the first page of results. 88% report doing so after three pages.
  • 36% of users agreed that "seeing a company listed among the top results on a search engine makes me think that the company is a top one within its field."
• The November 2005 PEW Internet & ComScore Study (PDF) mentioned above revealed:
  • On an average day, 60 million people use search engines
  • Search engine usage rises with both education levels (27% of those without a high school diploma vs. 55% with a college or graduate degree) and income (29% of those earning less than $30,000 vs. 52% of those earning $75,000+)
• An August 2007 Foresee/ACSI Report for eMarketer (Link) remarked:
  • 75% of search engine & portal users were satisfied with their experiences
  • In a breakdown by property, 79% of Yahoo! users, 78% of Google users, and 75% of both MSN & Ask.com users reported being satisfied
• Comscore reported in August of 2007 (Link):
  • The number of search queries performed on the web grew 2% from 2006 to approximately 10 billion searches per month (across all engines)
  • Google owned the lion’s share of searches with 55.2%, Yahoo! had 23.5%, Microsoft had 12.3%, and Ask.com had 4.7% (AOL, which shows Google results, clocked in at 4.4%)
• A Yahoo! study from 2007 (Link, PDF) showed:
  • Online advertising drives in-store sales at a 6:1 ratio to online sales
  • Consumers in the study spent $16 offline (in stores) to every $1 spent online
• Webvisible & Nielsen produced a 2007 report on local search (Link) that noted:
  • 74% of respondents used search engines to find local business information vs. 65% who turned to print yellow pages, 50% who used Internet yellow pages, and 44% who used traditional newspapers
  • 86% surveyed said they have used the Internet to find a local business, a rise from the 70% figure reported last year (2006)
  • 80% reported researching a product or service online, then making that purchase offline from a local business
• A study on data leaked from AOL’s search query logs (Link) reveals:
  • The first ranking position in the search results receives 42.25% of all click-through traffic
  • The second position receives 11.94%, the third 8.47%, the fourth 6.05%, and all others are under 5%
  • The first ten results received 89.71% of all click-through traffic, the next 10 results (normally listed on the second page of results) received 4.37%, the third page - 2.42%, and the fifth - 1.07%. All other pages of results received less than 1% of total search traffic clicks.

In addition to these statistics, research firm Enquiro conducted heatmap testing with search engine users (Link) that produced fascinating results about what users see and focus on when engaged in search activity. Below is a heatmap showing a test performed on Google. The graphic indicates that users spent the most amount of time where the colors are hottest - in the red, orange, and yellow sections of the page.

SELand’s Stats & Behaviors page.

All of this impressive research data leads us to some important conclusions about web search and marketing through search engines. In particular, we’re able to make the following assumptions with relatively surety:

1. Search is very, very popular. It reaches nearly every online American, and billions of people around the world.
2. Being listed in the first few results is critical to visibility.
3. Being listed at the top of the results not only provides the greatest amount of traffic, but instills trust in consumers as to the worthiness and relative importance of the company/website.
4. An incredible amount of offline economic activity is driven by searches on the web.

As marketers, the Internet as a whole and search, specifically, are undoubtedly one of the best and most important ways to reach consumers and build a business, no matter the size, reach, or focus.

 

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I’m feeling a bit spent tonight, so despite the need for some refinement, and the fact that I should really put the search process into a visual flowchart, I’m hitting the deck. Tomorrow when I do this, I’ll try to report some news as well

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MSN’s site: command is Confusing Me…

Posted by rebecca

I’m working on a site review for a client, and I was checking to see how well the site was indexed across the major search engines. Normally we do a site: command and skip to the last page of results to get as accurate a count as we can; however, MSN’s count is a little puzzling. When I first performed a count, it said the client’s site had 180 pages indexed (it’s a brand new site). Jumping to the 10th page, however, changed the count to 100, and I couldn’t see any results beyond page 10. Furthermore, when I tried to go back to previous pages, the count remained at 100. What happened to 180?

I’ll use SEOmoz as an example. Searching for "site:seomoz.org" returns 94,500 results:

Once I go beyond the 100th page of results, however, I’m automatically taken to the 100th page, where it says "Page 100 of 1,000 results":

If I go back one page to 99, it changes again and says there are 94,400 results:

The counts are the same regardless of whether or not I’m logged into Live Search. Why severely neuter the results after a certain page? I can understand only showing 100 pages of results, but other search engines don’t cut off the pages *and* drastically alter the count after a certain page. This is all very perplexing to me, as I haven’t noticed this until now. Has anyone else experienced this with MSN?

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Snippets from 30,000 Feet

Posted by randfish

I’m on a plane from Newark to Seattle. It’s late at night, and the first hour was spent on the ground waiting for low CIGS (low ceilings of clouds & rain) to clear. So, while I still have another 4.5 hours in front of me, I’m just grateful to be in the air.

The last week was a whirlwind – although that’s nothing new. For the last 4 years, the acceleration brought about by my job feels as though it has no end. I’ll find myself getting 6 hours of sleep a night (sometimes less), answering 150 emails a day and barely noticing that I’m in a different city every other week. It’s a good thing. It feels almost comfortable. Or, maybe, more accurately, it feels good to be uncomfortable – to be challenged.

The whirlwind started on Sunday, when Mystery Guest dropped me off at the airport. I have a consistent pattern when it comes to business travel. I’m almost always making presentations, and since I despise presenting material I’ve already used before, I force myself to make new slides, new “decks” (apparently this is what important business people like me call Powerpoint files) for every speech. It’s probably not the most practical thing, but I like to think that I’m not just presenting for the audience, I’m doing it for myself, too. If I get bored with my material, how can I be excited to share it with them?

I board the plane early and read until we’re in the air and “approved” to use laptops. The book is pretty awful, although I don’t know that yet. I’m still in the honeymoon phase of it, when the writer was putting forth a real effort. But, at 20 minutes into the flight, I grab my Dell and start turning the outlines I’ve emailed to Karen into presentations. I can’t grab screenshots from the web, which are an essential, but I can figure out what I need on each slide, and that will save me a lot of time later on. I also have my collection of vector illustrations in Flash, including Googlebot, Yahoo! monster and crudely traced representations of people to combine with arrows and thought bubbles. These I can do on the plane.

In 1997, when I started working on the web professionally (sort of), I fell in love with Flash – the animation, the sound, the unbridled, free-of-tables formatting made me a fan. For almost 4 years, I worked in Flash – building ever more complex animations and designs. Then, one day, I read Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug’s masterpiece on web usability. I haven’t built a Flash website since, and the world is probably better off for it. My artistic ability suffers from a lack of… let’s say talent.

But Flash has served me well – the palette tools and my familiarity with the layers and systems for creating basic designs means that I can now use it as a Photoshop substitute, never having had the patience to learn that program.

Later in the week, as I’m giving my hour-long session on the Essentials of Social Media Marketing, I’ll marvel at how I raced through 113 slides in 50 minutes. The Guy Kawasaki, 10-20-30 philosophy just doesn’t work for me. Luckily, the audience seems to like it, too. Karen hasn’t sent me my feedback scores yet, but based on the in-person chats I’ve had with attendees, it went pretty well. I guessed right that Danny’s new SMX Social conference would draw a savvy crowd, so even though my job was to present an introduction to the material, I raced through it, tried to present it in an entertaining way, and, hopefully, educated the stragglers of the group while I was at it.

After the session is over, I get to watch my co-worker Rebecca give her presentation on Linkbait. When I started speaking at search marketing conferences, I was 25 years old, and one of the youngest people in attendance, nevermind on stage. Rebecca’s in a similar spot, although the crowd at SMX, both on and off the podium has plenty of early-twenties professionals. I think it’s her sarcasm and her fearlessness to reference off-color and pop culture influences that helps her connect with the crowd. She’s young, but she’s capable, and she’s got a few years of experience and a number of noteworthy success stories under her belt. I wish she could be more confident sometimes, but once she settles into the role, she performs well, and I think I’m the only one who notices that her voice is just a little bit off. Besides which, at her age, I was still designing websites in Flash for clients who paid $1,000 for a month of work.

Personally, I feel like I’ve always been too young. At five years old, I felt a little too young to travel across the country by myself on a plane (ironically enough, taking the same route I’m taking now). At 12, I skipped a grade in school and felt too young to be with the older kids. The next year, I’d repeat the grade at a new school to help make up for it. At 18, I lived in Prague for 4 months during my freshman year at UW. I was lonely and confused and awkward, but at least I picked up some Czech and developed a lifelong love for Pilsner Urquell (which thankfully found its way to US supermarket shelves just a couple years later). At 25, standing in front of an audience of 300+ in San Jose, I felt pretty good about my presentation on search algorithms until the first person from the audience came up after the session and asked how old I was.

Rebecca’s wrapped up and I’m at lunch with Michael Gray. I love the way he talks – his cadence and thick Long Island accent are a prefect match for the content of his rants against Google’s latest policy. I hate to run, but I have to meet with a client all afternoon. Thus, it’s onto the 1 train to Chambers street, where, with the help of a brusque policeman, I find the 7 World Trade Center building, get a badge from security, and ride elevator bank D up some 3 dozen stories. I’m meeting with the publishers of Inc & FastCompany to talk about something new they’ve got cooking up, but when I arrive, all I can do is stare at the view.

Far below, cranes and bulldozers are clearing earth, moving steel and preparing the ground for the site of what will be the tallest building in New York. Far off in the distance, my friend Kate points out the Tapanzee bridge. She tells me that as they tear down the floors of the adjacent, asbestos-afflicted building, the view becomes ever more magnificent. There’s undoubtedly sadness here, but there’s also the promise of something new, something incredible, something that can serve as a symbol of renewal and triumph over adversity. I think someone far wiser than me once said that America is both cursed and blessed by its short memory. I can’t think of a more appropriate symbol of that sentiment that what I’m looking at now.

Three hours later, I’m stepping off the 1 train and hiking back to the hotel. After a couple hours on email, I’ll join some friends for dinner, where we’ll bump into Garret Camp, the founder of StumbleUpon. Together, we’re amicably kidnapped and carted in a cheap limousine (they’re about the same price as a cab when you have this many people) to midtown, where we smoke cigars in a bar that almost throws us out for being underdressed (I’m in a suitcoat and jeans).

It’s after midnight when I get back to the hotel, and outside I meet up with Guillaume – my great friend from Montreal. I can tell he’s upset that we haven’t seen much of each other this trip (and probably won’t since he’s going back to Quebec the next day). Guilt is a constant at events like this – and I’m more sensitive to it than most. After all, it was only a couple years ago that I dined by myself most nights at a conference, hung out alone in the bars and hoped that someone I’d recognize would come along and chat. When I’d make a friend, I’d feel that same pang of envy when I’d see them coming back from a late night on the town with a crowd of compatriots. Luckily, Guillaume’s surrounded by people, so I feel a bit better when I beg forgiveness and ride the elevator up to my room.

Sleep is a constant problem for me. Unlike Danny Sullivan, I can’t stay out until 3am, then arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning at 8. My sleep requirements have always been high, and without 7 hours, I start to look and feel like some sort of SEO zombie, cursed to optimize SERPs and feed on brains. I’m constantly waging a battle against the blog – where I know that if I don’t produce something new and something worth reading every night, I’ll lose readers.

It’s a fact. Looking at our visit and subscription stats, you can see the pattern clear as day. If, on a given Monday-Friday morning, nothing new has come out on SEOmoz, our feed subscribers go down some fractional amount, our daily visit numbers drop 15-25% and we have fewer signups for accounts and fewer premium membership signups. Conversely, when I put something truly excellent on the blog, the positive results are equally visible. Visits are up, links are up, premium signups are up and all is right in the world.

But, the toll is heavy. Most nights I’m home in Seattle, I start formulating the blog post I want to write on my walk home from work. It usually takes me about 20 minutes to traverse the 1.1 miles from my apartment to the office – a saving grace, since I almost never go to the gym or use the elliptical machine I bought last December. From 6-10:30pm, I play husband (even though technically I won’t become one until next summer). Mystery Guest works out, or does laundry or watches TV (when she’s had a really tough day) and I cook. I’m by no means a gourmet, but I’m competent about 70% of the time, and I push myself to try new things, work with good ingredients and generally get better at preparing food. By 11pm, though, it’s back to the computer and onto the blog (once I wrap up another 40 emails). If I’m lucky I’ll spit out something in an hour, and can go to sleep by 12:30am. If I’m stumped, or take on an overly ambitious post, I’ll be up until 2am or later.

This happens tonight in New York. I’ve just finished the post on the Visuals of the Search Results, but it’s 2am and I have to be up at 7:30 tomorrow. Morning comes and sure enough, my eyes are dry & red – probably exacerbated by the cigar I had last night. There’s no time to waste, but time gets wasted anyway as I discover my room’s iron is out of order and have to call down for a new one so I can get my shirt done in time to leave. I wanted to take the subway, but am forced by tardiness to hail a cab. I’m meeting with the NY Jets organization on 57th street to talk about their search strategy. Thankfully, the meeting is great, mostly due to the incredibly friendly and receptive people I’m meeting. After the meeting ends, I whiz back to the conference, just in time to grab a hot dog from a street vendor and make it my talk on Micro Communities.

I’m on the panel with Liana Evans, and in the past, we’ve had our differences. However, a week before the show and after a rather painful blog post, we shared a few emails and a phone call. Talking to Liana, I realize that she’s got some very valid points, and that I owe her a serious apology. She’s more gracious than I could hope for, and by the time we see each other in New York, we break out in smiles and hugs. As much as I love the Internet as a medium, there’s no doubt that the lack of human contact can make for bad situations sometimes. It’s something I’ll have to work on – especially since I’m terrible at not taking things personally.

Micro Communities is a hit. From all the notes I can see the audience taking, I know that there’s a lot of new information. Liana follows up my broad overview with a specific example of how she used social media marketing to micro communities and achieved great success for a client in a very competitive industry. It’s the perfect counterpoint, and the audience is overrun with questions, so much so that Danny has to cut us off with a half dozen hands in the air. After the session ends, Liana and I field individual questions for the full 15 minutes. I’m thrilled when I can refer a gentlemen seeking services to Liana’s company – KeyRelevance – which has been on our Recommended List since its inception.

I want to stay and see the other panels, especially the advice from Jon Hochman on Wikipedia, but I’ve got a prior commitment. I walk down to SoHo – about 20 blocks and buy some presents to bring home to Mystery Guest. After so many trips to New York, I’m a seasoned veteran, and after three short stops, I catch the subway up to the meat-packing district and walk back to the conference, where I’m just in time to hear the last session of the day wrap up.

I spend some time chatting with Andy Greenberg from Forbes, whose demeanor is the complete opposite of every other NY reporter I’ve ever met. He’s a pleasure to talk to – warm, engaging, utterly fascinated by social media & SEO and genuinely curious. He mentions that an article on using Digg to reach Google is almost certainly part of his agenda for the week and sure enough, 2 days later, there it is.

I don’t know that I’ve ever handled public relations and press relations properly. Every time I talk to someone in PR, they always ask about our agency and are shocked to hear that we’ve never engaged one. In deeper conversations, I’ve heard tell that PR folks can help turn a short piece into a long piece (with a photo), turn a piece of advice into a sure mention in a story and even pitch the mainstream media to help attract coverage. It’s something I need to look into, as press is something we’ll need if we want to reach our goals for expansion. We’ve been lucky so far, but it would probably be hypocritical to think that we can manage PR ourselves as well as we could with a talented agency or even a consultant. After all, what is SEO if not public relations for the web?

With the conference over, I hop in a cab with my luggage and head for Museum Mile. In rush hour traffic, it’s a 50 minute trip and I arrive at 92nd and 5th at 6:40, 10 minutes late for the lecture I’m attending with my grandparents. Luckily, it turns out to be the best part of the day, and maybe my favorite part of the trip. Camille Pissarro’s great-grandson is speaking about the famous impressionist painter and his relationship with a contemporary and peer, Paul Cezanne.

I love this. I grew up in Seattle, but would spend at least 2-3 weeks every year in New Jersey with my grandparents, and we’d frequently drive into the city to visit museums and attend plays. My family was never wealthy, but two seniors and a student (especially with my grandmother’s NYTimes subscriber’s card discount) was a perfect way to spend an inexpensive day in New York. Museums are great equalizers – school kids from Harlem and jewelry-clad Upper East Siders co-mingle brazenly, appreciating beauty in their own personal ways. There were certainly ages where I didn’t appreciate it, but even just out of high school, I can recall loving museums, galleries and exhibitions wherever I traveled. Seattle’s own dismal fine arts scene only heightened the experience.

Pissarro was born to Sephardic Jews on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas (where I believe SEOmoz’s own Jane Copland still holds several swimming titles) and emigrated to France at a young age, but retained his Danish citizenship (as St. Thomas was a colony of Denmark). Our lecturer regales us with a passionate, and clearly personal, examination of how the artist’s life influenced his art and its shocking break from the standards of the age. An hour and a half flies by, and I find myself wishing he had more slides to show and more stories to tell. As we leave, my grandfather, SEOmoz’s Si Fishkin, fills me in on the details of the Dreyfus case (which Pissarro’s great grandson mentioned but did not elaborate on), an infamous tale of antisemitism and corruption late in the artist’s life.

The next night, we’ll see Henry VI in a playhouse at Drew University in NJ, and despite the 3 hours of patricide, fratricide and homicide, love every minute.

Thus ends a week in New York. I’m only 100 emails behind and I don’t have to blog tonight. Next week I’ve got 3 phone calls, a couple lunch meetings and a video-over-Skype interview. We’ve got 2 clients who need site review reports, a new contract to get out to the Jets and 3 presentations to build for SMX Stockholm. That, and we’re hiring 3 new positions. To quote Rick Moranis; “No, no, no. Light speed is too slow.”

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