Yahoo! Microsoft Alliance – What? How? When?

Last week I tuned in to a webcast entitled SMN Webcast June 24: Yahoo! Microsoft Alliance – What? How? When? in the hope of receiving some answers about the impending Yahoo! Microsoft PPC transition which is going to impact all search marketers in the near future.
The presented webcast itself had no real surprises, it [...]

Reflecting on SMX Advanced

I attended SMX Advanced 2010 in Seattle last week, it was my first time at the conference and I wanted to put my cards on the table, highlighting what I liked about the conference and what I thought could be improved.
What I Liked
Birds of a Feather Topic Lunch Tables – The opportunities to network [...]

Reap What You Sow: SMX Advanced

I think I should say it now, so that no one is surprised later when they do not see me live blogging or Twittering about SMX Advanced… my laptop is more like a desktop, making it cumbersome to carry and use at a search marketing conference. And no, I do not currently own an Apple [...]

Getting Excited about SMX Advanced Seattle 2010

According to some SMX Advanced conference regulars, this is the conference to attend in North America. They say, if there’s one to check out, it’s this one. The appeal lies in a smaller venue that limits numbers and allows for more intimate networking to higher level topics that excite industry professionals rather than putting them [...]

Google 0 vs. China 1

Google has a “new approach to China” as David Drummond, the company’s chief legal officer put it on January 12 on Google’s official blog. The post quite directly points a finger at China as the source of a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China”. The primary goal of this [...]

Search Marketers – Too Generalist?

In the last few years the online marketing field has grown to become more sophisticated, in line with the increasing demands of more knowledgeable clients and the constant evolution of the search industry. They say that the only constant in search is change’. They are right. A few years ago, it was more than feasible [...]

Breaking the Search Marketing Silo

In 1886 John Wanamaker coined the phrase that would define traditional marketing:

“I know that 50% of my advertising is wasted…
…I just don’t know which half!”
Then in 2000, search marketing made its official debut with the launch of Google AdWords. This redefined the marketing game, as Pay-per-Click (PPC) gave rise to a measurable form of consumer-initiated [...]

The New Divide: Sales vs. Web Team

The historic clash between the sales and marketing departments has been well documented. There are proponents on both sides of the fence making their case for the paramount importance of their respective function. Many articles written on this topic try to punch above their weight making grandiose statements such as ‘marketing leads, sales follows’, of [...]

5 Quality SEO/SEM Glossaries

It is useful to have a few SEM glossary resources on hand, for those evasive jargon terms that search marketers gleefully utilise in their conversations, blogs and proposals.
The following glossaries cover a comprehensive list of SEO & SEM terms and jargon used in the online marketing industry. These glossaries are from established industry resources and [...]

An Introduction

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a discipline that is often shrouded in confusion as traditional marketers and business owners are overwhelmed by industry jargon, false promises, unrealistic expectations and disgraceful service experiences that serve only to stigmatise the SEM industry.
It appears that within the SEM industry there lingers a distinct lack of street cred.
In the [...]