During Webmaster World last week I had the opportunity to see what surely must be the best show in vegas : Blue Man Group. I've found other shows failed to meet the expectations I had. Not so in this case. The experience was moving and thought provoking.

The Blue Men are puzzled or indifferent to the physical world around them. They might be space aliens or time travelers. They might understand some of the world they see, and choose to remain above it, or they really don't grasp it at all. One can imagine a future in which human interaction… Continue reading

I just returned from Pubcon 2007 Las Vegas. After every conference, a few events stand out as particularly good.. or particularly bad. Here are mine: To the speakers who still reveal how it really works. Neil, Rand, Aaron, Todd, and others kept the spirit of Pubcon by sharing some raw, unfiltered truths of how things really work in SEO, social media and SEM. To Joe Morin for arranging for us to see… Continue reading

You've decided you need consulting help, but don't want to lock in a contract until you know more about the consultant's work. It's a Catch-22. Solution: Get an initial audit. It's a great way to get a glimpse of the quality of intuition and delivery from your prospective consultant. An initial audit should contain observations and recommendations in each significant service area that may be provided by your consultant. For example, we cover Web Analytics, SEO, Paid Search/PPC, Email Marketing, Conversion and Online Publicity in most audits. But the weighting varies according to the need of the client. It's a sampling… Continue reading

Here we have SES Chicago and Pubcon in the same week. It's like asking a kid to choose which parent to live with. So the Market Motive faculty will be speaking at both events. This Tuesday, John Marshall will be speaking at WebMasterWorld PubCon Vegas Analytics, Tracking Performance - Beyond the Page View The same day I'll be sharing my favorite four ways to game AdWords Quality Score at Quality Score Management At the same conference, Todd Malicoat will be covering Link Baiting - 96 Different Strategies Interactive Site Reviews - Focus - Social Media SEO Tools of

I'll be sharing four of my favorite ways to 'game' AdWords quality score this next Tuesday at WebMasterWorld Pubcon Las Vegas. It wasn't too hard to figure out how to fool the Adwords Bot into thinking every page was relevant (I'll show you how). But (warning, spoiler ahead) in the end, this exercise simply came back to a clever way to create relevance among keyword, ad copy, landing page and adgroup semantic grouping -- which is good marketing in the first place. So there you go. It'll be informative, I promise. But what might… Continue reading