Yesterday I attended the Love @ First Website seminar, in downtown Portland. Basically, it was a case study on three different websites, showing what they looked like before, explaining why they made the changes they did, and showing what they looked like upon completion too.

The first website was GoHawaii.com, and the presenter was Kara Imai. She reviewed Hawaii’s tourist industry a bit, and explained how they were refocusing their target market.

Have a question about search? Ask it in our forums. Join the conversation now!

“The whole idea of guerrilla marketing is to transform cold prospects into consenting partners.” Jay Conrad Levinson

Levinson´s brilliant article makes analogies between sex and guerrilla marketing…here, I´ll focus on a couple examples where sex was blatantly used to market small businesses in atypical guerrilla fashion. Both examples offended people and ruffled feathers. Why was one a brilliant success and one a colossal failure?

In early May, Chicago commuters were greeted with the following billboard:

PAF would be delighted to offer members of SEMpdx 10% off the non-member rate for all programs (including the Roseys!). To secure this discount SEMPdx members will need to e-mail Jamie Sexton, Executive Director with their registration information.

Amplify-Interactive is currently experiencing a growth phase, and we’re looking for the right people to join the team and help drive this phase of growth. We’re a small but established & well-known firm, and as a member of our team - you’ll be in a position to participate in every single aspect of the business, work on pet projects, contribute directly to our growth and learn new things every day.

Date: June 27, 2007

Location: Tiffany Center 1410 SW Morrison St. Portland, OR 97205

Time: Breakfast: 8 a.m. Event: 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Cost: $40 by using the following link to register: https://www.sporg.com/registration?link_type=form&form_id=89013

Website: www.isitedesign.com/love

Phone: 503.972.9085

E-mail: labbott@isitedesign.com

Abstract:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Engineer

GTS, is a division of PPG Industries and the leading provider of enterprise software to the glass industry. We are dedicated to the business success of thousands of customers throughout North America and committed to the support, development, and achievement of our employees. Join GTS today for a career that will challenge you and reward your achievements.

If you’re a search marketer, then you have likely heard of Search Marketing Standard Magazine.  and it’s the first print publication fully devoted to search and Internet marketing.

At the SEMpdx board meeting this week, among the things we discussed were increasing the value for  our members  through discounts on various events and products that many people already attend or use.

Our talented team makes the hard work of creating your site, optimizing your site for search and reaching your business goals a fun and creative process. Our programmers, designers, writers and project managers bring the same amount of creativity and devotion to their work as they do to their personal lives.

1) Tell me about Media forte Marketing. What is a typical client engagement for you?

The Internet Strategy Forum Executive Summit returns for a fourth year after being sold to capacity for the past three years. The theme this year is Web 2.0 and Social Media and the keynote speaker is Yahoo!’s Chief Marketing Officer. The CMO of WebTrends is also featured, as is FedEx’s VP of Electronic Channels and Strategic Marketing. This event is for senior marketing, IT, and C-level executives, as well as Internet strategists and Internet vendors. Conference attendees will engage with executive speakers from Yahoo!, FedEx, CNET, IBM, WebTrends, Intel, Adobe, One Economy Corp., The Reach Group and more, who will share their insights and ideas on the latest Internet strategies, how marketing & IT can work together better, and the real-world benefits of integrating the Internet into overall business strategies.

SEMpdx t-shirts, golf shirts, mugs, hats, stickers & thongs are available at Cafe Press. See all the SEMpdx gear.

We expect the SEMpdx thong to be a hot item at the beach this summer:.)

SEMpdx is on the Meetup.com as a “Portland Search Engine Optimization Group“. We’ve posted information about our July networking event here and we encourage everyone interested in Search Engine Optimization in the Portland area to “Meetup With SEMpdx“.

I want to tell you about the secrets I learned at this most informative session. However, Danny Sullivan insisted on a one month embargo of all the tips and tricks disclosed here. Some in the audience tried to break the embargo, so as a way to compel enforcement, Danny released this SMX-sanctioned video showing how SMX has taken care of people that attempted to break the embargo. Needless to say, I don’t want to suffer the fate of these poor folks.

Google will alert webmasters if they have “spammy issues”. Added specific guidelines for quality. Will take manual action. Any site can be reincluded / reconsidered.

Spam is content / techniques generated only for search engines and not humans in an attempt to inflate ranking. Intent / targeting is key. Look for? Page level - doing things useless for end-users. Link-level: in & out links. Deceiving end-users. Spammy behavior accounted for in rankings - can result in delisting.

Spam more about intent of technique and the extent a technique is used, rather than being a specific technique. Where is the fine line? Varies by industry. Is a user comfortable with the user experience of a site (excessive links, nonsensical text, etc.). Search engines can’t discose where the line is.

Different page ranks for different people based upon what interests you. &pws=0 turns off personalized search. Google’s web history breaks history into sessions.

Session based personalization - understanding user intent based on queries & clicks - when does session get started? Interest based personalization - understanding user interest based upon declared preferences or user behavior inside or outside search context. Challenge - users sometimes do searches outside their area of interest / normal behavior. Queries should get shorter, more of the top ten should be relevant to the user so long as correct user intent is extrapolated. Impact: Better matching, give search engines enough content on page to help determine topicality. Yahoo’s approach - user activity in social products, help them discover content interesting to them and their community. Recovery applications can help save site, i.e. “refind” information that you’ve already found.

Graywolf blog

Gaming personalized search. Adds uncertainty to the issue of rankings. PPC - more stability. Ties people into more Google Services.

Enquiro

Social search can be part of personalization. Optimization will happen around themes rather than keywords. Long-tail optimization, optimize around content brackets, understanding user behavior will be vital, user-centric development will take hold, emerging “basic sites” will be an SEO tactic.

Moving up the tunnel - site stickiness, buildout of content, functionality, sites will become “research bases”, content aggregation, comparison wizards, more mashups, development of widgets and gadgets to push visits to sites.