jatiN mahindrA doT coM

How To Write For Search Engines Without Knowing SEO

You want to write smarter web copy to attract better organic search engine results. You want to know how to write blog posts and website copy that is optimized and makes it easier for prospective customers to find you. You want to be a good at SEO copywriting. But the layers of technology knowledge you assume you need are intimidating. So where do you begin? Here’s a quick way...

Where Does Yahoo Fit Into Your Search Strategy?

In search, a lot of what Yahoo has done has been overshadowed by what Google and Bing have done, simply because Google controls such a huge piece of the search pie, and Bing is still a relatively fresh entity. All eyes are still on Bing as it grows. That leaves Yahoo somewhere in the middle, where it technically sits in terms of market share. How important is Yahoo to your search strategy? Let us...

Corporate Blog Success Starts And Ends With Business Metrics

The social media purists will tell you that a corporate blog serves as a community hub for your brand. They say it gives your customers a connection point to your company and engenders a sense of community. In some cases that’s true, but you’re going to see me exploring corporate blogging a lot more this year to follow up on a theory that your “community” or “audience”...

Using Search To Prove Social Media’s Value

If you subscribe to the notion that social media is a discipline that is most appropriately aligned with public relations, customer service, customer relationship management and similar business channels, you probably have a hard time seeing social media’s link — pun intended — to search engine optimization. SEO probably comes across as a very scientific process, heavy on paid search...

If You Care About Search, You Must Care About Social Media

All of the search engines are rushing to incorporate more social media elements into their interfaces. Examples of this are evident in things like Google and Bing’s deals with Twitter and Facebook. You can see it in Yahoo’s new Twitter tab for news results. You can see it in Google’s Social Search lab. Really you can see it in everyday search results. Do you consider a social presence...

What Social Search Means To Your Business

Image via CrunchBase Bing and Google recently announced partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to provide elements of real-time and social search to their respective search engine results. On the surface, this probably blew past most business owners and marketers as not much in the way of being important. If the information is online, aren’t Bing and Google supposed to find it? And, frankly,...

Google and Heineken Study Search for Branding

This week Google released some findings from a test Google Netherlands conducted with Metrixlab, Heineken, and Heineken’s agency Twist. They set out to find what effects paid search ads had on branding, and were quite pleased with the results. The idea was to compare the effectiveness of search against other media as well as look at the interaction of search with those other media. They measured...

A Peek At The Future Of Search?

Zakta In July, I told you about a new experiment in search that was refreshing. Zakta is a new search engine — I know, I know. Who in their right mind would try and compete with Google, Bing, Yahoo and so on? — but one that has some legs. I mentioned it in one of my Pitch Log Mashups but with their recent full launch, I revisited them and want to make sure you understand the implications...

Aardvark Makes Crowdsourcing Your Social Graph Easy

Bing has made quite a splash branding itself as a decision engine. You type in a question or topic, you get results that are, at least in my limited experience, more closely related to what you’re looking for than other search engines. But where Bing might miss by casting such a wide net, a tool that has been around a few months called Aardvark is trying to capitalize on with a small, very purposed...

SES SJ: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

It was standing room only for the SES San Jose session regarding Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues. Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing started the session off by addressing why duplicate content is a concern. When there are duplicate content issues it lowers the number of pages available to rank. Less pages to rank can equal less rankings which can lead to lower search traffic. In addition,...

SES SJ: Beyond Googling

Beyond Google. Where will customers be searching in 5 years? Dixon Jones of Receptional asks the audience: Who doubts life after Google? About half the audience raises their hand. According to Dixon, there will be life after Google and we are already there. He cites Facebook as an example of a site that is growing links more quickly than Google. He then goes on to discuss the Trust/Convenience Contract....

The Problem Of Promoting You, Your Cause, Your Business With Social Media

If your company wants to know the philosophical basis of social media, many resources indicate it rests in the notion that consumers grew tired of advertising and marketing messages all day, every day. They turned to the Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the access and technology barriers to entry conveniently dropped. There, they found like-minded others to share recommendations and...

Intersection of Search and Social Media AdWeekMedia Connect

This afternoon I did a live chat with AdWeekMedia Connect, a social network for the ad agency set on the intersection of search and social media. Embedded below is the recorded chat stream: Lee Odden Chat Here are a few resources on the topic: Mashable: Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success IAB: Social Advertising Best Practices Forrester: Interactive Marketing to Hit $55B by 2014 VentureBeat:...

Intersection of Search and Social Media

Earlier this week I gave a presentation on the intersection of SEO, online PR and social media to a great mix of people (mostly agencies) at a SEMPO Arizona event. The SEO/PR/Social topic is an interesting mix due to the convergence that’s been happening over the past 2-3 years and of course, because it’s the essence of what we’ve been doing at TopRank. Forward thinking companies...

Search Marketing Has Two Sides

Search marketing has two distinct faces. One is a purely technical side that deals with percentages and code and all things geeky. The other is the reason why you do it: to do more business via the Internet. I have seen these two sides face off and claim that the mere existence of the other makes life impossible for them. I have seen these two not communicate at all. I have also seen these two sides...