SEO Newsletter | Volume 44 | December 15, 2007
BruceClay.com
In this issue:

FEATURE:
 The Top Six Takeaways from PubCon 2007

BACK TO BASICS:
The Importance of "The Long Tail" in SEO

THE USUAL: Coverage of this month's
 hot topics, shuffles, shindigs, attaboys and word on the wire.

FEATURE: The Top Six Takeaways from PubCon 2007
PubCon took over Las Vegas last week and brought with it four days of informational instruction and search marketers from around the globe. Session topics ranged from search engine optimization, pay per click management, branding, social media, Web analytics and everything in between. Bruce Clay, Inc. bloggers Susan Esparza and Lisa Barone were on hand to provide liveblogging coverage for an impressive 27 sessions. But in case you don't have time to sift through all that, here are the Top 6 takeaways from PubCon Las Vegas 2007 . These are the nuggets that every search marketer must know to start 2008 off on the right foot!

BACK TO BASICS: The Importance of "The Long Tail" in SEO

One of the most commonly discussed subjects in search engine optimization is "The Long Tail". Every Web site's goal should be to maximize long tail traffic. But what is "The Long Tail" as it relates to search engine optimization? And how do you optimize your site with it in mind?


Hot Topics

It's our last newsletter of the year and that means it's time to take a look back at the trends that grabbed our attention in 2007.

The Year That Was As Bruce Clay predicted in our January 2007 newsletter, online ads took a huge leap forward, branding became more important than ever with the advent of blended search, blogs made the transition from important to necessary, and a little thing called the iPhone made the industry take mobile marketing seriously.

Blended Search

As early as April we started talking about the changes to the search engine landscape, the introduction of more content than just simple text. Google made the announcement of Universal Search official in May but it was in June that Ask revolutionized the way results were delivered with Ask 3D. Microsoft followed behind. Recently, even Yahoo has started to integrate advanced content into their SERPs. But still, no one does it better than Ask.

Blended search has a long way to go, as Lisa Barone noted this October. When the engines can be tripped up by something as small as a capitalization error or misspelling, it's clear that blended search is still anyone's game.

Mobile Marketing

The hype began building with the announcement of Apple's iPhone in January when online marketers first began to realize exactly how important it was to be accessible to every kind of platform. In February, the Mobile Marketing Congress was held, a conference designed around taking advantage of this new distribution channel.

Google's mobile applications grew in popularity over summer 2007 with Mashable noting that it indicated "users have become more comfortable with using Google's mobile applications, and also that phone technology and browsing capabilities are improving." Mobile was moving in a big way and smart site owners were capitalizing on that.

Raise Your Voice

In 2006, Times named "You" the person of the year but it was 2007 that saw the real growth in Social Networking. Last year, user generated content was just a hazily understood concept; this year, it became a necessary tool in the internet marketing toolkit. The popularity of conferences like Blog World Expo and WordCamp demonstrates a growing understanding in the power of human voices creating vital communities. User trust is the big topic, something clearly seen during December's PubCon.

Social media grew from blogs and forums to one-on-one conversations in places like Twitter, Facebook and Pownce. Public conversation through microsyndication opened up new avenues to communicate, network and even drive traffic.

Special Offer
New Year, New Course.

We're starting the new year off right here at Bruce Clay, Inc. by introducing our newly expanded training course. Standard SEO Training is now three days long and integrates the latest information about how to tackle SEO for blended search. We get deeper into the issues and of course, we've added lots more information on how to get the most out of your SEOToolSet subscription. Our Advanced SEO Certification course is now a day and a half. You'll still get a year subscription to the Toolset, but this time around instead of 5 domains, you'll get 7.

We'd like all our old students to come back and see what's new. That's why we're offering alumni the chance to take the new class at the old price--a $300 savings. If you haven't taken the class yet, worry not. Just for being a newsletter subscriber you can get a discount off the new class too. Mention the code BC-News when you register for training and we'll take $200 off the price.

January classes are filling up fast so hurry and register now. It's a great way to use up the rest of your budget before the new year takes it away.


Shuffles

In human shufflings, Julie Kent joined the Search Engine Journal team, Richard Zannino resigned as CEO of the Dow Jones and Robert Scoble left PodTech to join Fast Company. Yahoo continued its executive clean up, letting go VP of Media Engineering Bharath Kadaba and Rachel Glaser, a senior VP of operations finance. Chris Sacca announced he was leaving Google to focus on investing in early-stage tech companies.

In corporate mergers and acquisitions:

In redesigns, LinkedIn and UK yellow pages publisher Yell both updated their site to include more Web 2.0 features. Google changed their Products link to Shopping, hoping to catch more of the valuable holiday traffic.


Shindigs

If you attended this month's PubCon Las Vegas or SES Chicago 2007, we hope you found the experience to be both informational and enjoyable. If you were at PubCon, hopefully you had a chance to make your way to the booth or catch Bruce speaking at one of his many sessions. Bruce Clay bloggers Susan Esparza and Lisa Barone were also at the event and provided comprehensive liveblogging coverage for 27 different sessions. You can read their session recaps in our PubCon 2007 Archives.

However, now that December's two big search events are behind us, all eyes are looking towards 2008.

The 2008 search marketing conference calendar will kick off overseas with SES Paris taking place on 15-16 January, SES London on 19-21 Feb, and ad:tech Sydney on 12-13 March.

If you're attending ad:tech, you'll want to extend your stay in order to attend Bruce Clay's Australian SEO Training Course which will take place just a few days later in Sydney on 17-19 March.

Here in the states, there will be SMX Santa Clara on February 26-28 and SES New York on March 17-20.


Attaboys

Yahoo President Susan Decker received a hefty $315,000 raise this month, bringing her annual salary to $815,000. She will also be eligible for a bonus of 150% of her base salary, which comes out to $1.2 million. Congratulations to Susan.

Microsoft launched its official training and accreditation program for adCenter nicknamed adExcellence.

The iPhone was named the "fastest growing" query of 2007. Similarly, Nintendo's Wii and the Apple iPod were named the top Christmas gadget searches in the United Kingdom.

Google co-founder Larry Page married long-time girlfriend Lucy Southworth on Richard Branson's Necker Island estate.

In birthdays, Search Engine Land turned one, industry magazine Search Marketing Standard turned two, and Search Engine Roundtable turned four.


Word on the Wire

It was two weeks of rumored firings. First, the Silicon Alley Insider repeated rumors that much of AOL's Product and Sales team were about to be laid off, and then shortly after we heard that Google was to let go of 60 former Postini employees.

Over at Search Engine Land, the Searcharazzi speculated that PromiseONE was in secret negotiations to acquire Fathom SEO.



If you have any questions or comments on any of the articles above or if you would like to suggest topics for future articles, please contact us at Bruce Clay, Inc.