Last week Chris and I went to Search Engine Strategies San Jose. This was my second conference and my second SES. The first was a bit of culture shock. I had no clue what to expect. This time around it was great to meet new people, get to know people better that I had met briefly last time, and really start to feel like a part of this SEO community.
We arrived on Sunday and on our plane were Michael Gray & Family, and Danny Funk and Kevin Newcomb. It kind of felt like we were kids on a class trip.
San Jose is a beautiful city. Any where you look you can see the mountains and the first thing that struck me was the lack of humidity. One of the great things about San Jose is that you don’t seem to need a car to get around. Whatever we did that was local we were able to walk to which just makes everything easier. It was almost like we were on a huge college campus because every few minutes we would run into someone we knew.
Sunday evening we met up with some SEO people for dinner at Gordon Biersch. I have to hand it to Li Evans of Search Marketing Gurus. She is a natural organizer. What started as an informal get together with a few people turned into 35 people out to dinner with no reservation! The restaurant was really accommodating. I had a great time and really enjoyed myself. I got to meet some really awesome peeps including the group from Top Rank Blog, Simon Heseltine, Robert Frost, and Irma and David Wallace. I love seeing other couples that work together in SEO. I also got to meet Bill Slawski which was great for me because I am a big fan.
We bought a new camera to bring with us on the trip and somewhere between here and leaving San Jose – we lost it! We realized that all the pics being taken were about 15 megs so we had it out and were playing with it to change the settings. (Note to self: ALWAYS read the manual). Somewhere in San Jose there is a 15 meg picture on our camera of me in a bathing suit. If I see it on a poster or a billboard somewhere I am going to be seriously annoyed.
After dinner we went back to the Marriott for some drinks. I got to talk to Scott Orth and see Tamar again. I hadn’t seen her since the previous SES in NY. Kudos to Tamar on her exciting new gig at lifehacker.com. We also met up with Matt McGee and Patrick Schaber – two excellent business bloggers and fun guys.
Day 1 The next day was Monday, the first day of the conference. It was a busy day. We wound up missing the morning sessions because we were launching our new site! (Any comments or feedback you have is appreciated: drwinfield [at] 10e20.com)
The day really got started for me at the Women of Internet Marketing lunch that Li so selflessly organized. The lunch was sponsored by Third Door Media and Danny Sullivan came to speak to us and say hello. I had a great time. It was so much fun to sit with women who are involved in all aspects of Search and Internet Marketing. Some were within the SEO departments of well established companies, others worked for SEO firms, and there were some that were totally new to the SEO Industry. There were even a couple of men that made their way over to the event including Kevin Heisler who was on his first day as the new editor of Search Engine Watch, and my husband Chris at the end. This event really evolved out of Li’s passion to highlight the women that are making a name for themselves in Internet Marketing. I hope to be a part of it for a long time to come. During the luncheon Kim Krause Berg made it in from the airport. She’d been stuck in Chicago overnight and I’ve never seen someone look so good after endless traveling and an overnight delay with no luggage! You go girl!
After the luncheon Chris did an interview with Joe Whyte for Search Marketing Standard. Keep an eye out for that, it’s about using press the right way to build your brand and your business (something Chris is really good at)
We then attended the session highlighting Searcher Behavior and how people interact with Search Engines. There is a great recap of this session over at Top Rank Blog.
Next up was the Vintage Tub & Bath party co-sponsored by Epiar and Pepperjam. The event was held at the Hakone Gardens about 30 minutes away from the Convention Center. The views were incredible and the party was a great time. I met Danny for the first time and he was the nicest guy! Sitting at dinner it was fascinating to hear how other companies approach their on-line marketing strategy and we got some great insight.
There was a Chinese Auction and Chris won the X-Box 360. You could say I spammed the auction bowls or you could say that I launched a strategic campaign to attain our goal. Tomayto, tomahto. 
Day 2 we went to some sessions. The most exciting was the the one everybody is talking about. Are paid links evil. On the panel were Matt Cutts of Google, Michael Gray, Todd Malicoat, Greg Boser, Todd Freisen, and Andy Baio. There are some great recaps of this session on the web right now, and they are definitely worth taking a look at. This was the most anticipated session of the conference and it did not disappoint. When it starts with “Google is not the government” you know it’s going to be good. There were points made on both sides that made sense, but as Michael so aptly said, unless you are one of the two people involved, there is no way to know whether or not a link has been paid for.
We went to the exhibition hall for a while and the party is always at the BOTW booth where we found Shimon, Brent, Dave, and Jill.
That evening was the Google Dance. I was excited because it was my first time at the Googleplex. We took a limo there (because that’s how we roll – just kidding we were invited by some very nice people) and when we pulled up there were strobe lights in all the Google colors and the stairs were lined with Google employees that were clapping and telling us how happy they were that we were there. It kind of, just for a second, reminded me of The Stand when the characters are walking up to Las Vegas. We hung out with some great people at the Google Dance including Avi, Loren, Frank, Jon, Li, Scott, and Neil. I owe Li and Scott a karaoke. . One of the highlights of the Google Dance for me was getting to meet Barbara Boser. I am a fan of her site, and she also let me know that Janet Jackson loves Shar Peis like our little Charlie. Sweet. I am looking forward to seeing her at other conferences. After the Google Dance it was back to the bar at the Fairmont where Natasha Robinson complimented me on working my power heels all night.
Day 3 -Wednesday started off with some sessions. Two that I gained a lot from were LinkBaiting and Viral Success where our friend Cameron Olthuis gave a great presentation which included a case study on a piece he did for a client. We also went to SEM Pricing Models where it was interesting to hear members of different types of companies discuss their approach.
That evening was the Search Bash by Webmaster Radio. It was a fun time and a great way to wind down from the conference. We had a chance to spend some time with Amy and Cameron Olthuis who are a great couple. It was my first time meeting Amy and I know that if we lived closer we would be regularly getting together. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to wait till Vegas. 
At the Search Bash we also got to hang out with Jarrod and Eleni from Text Link Brokers, Everett, Adam (who is expecting a baby at any moment!), Eddie from Webmaster Radio, our buddy Graywolf who was quite the celebrity after his paid links presentation, Shoemoney, and I got to meet Brett from Webmaster World.
The next day was the flight home and after a delay of several hours where we waited in the airport with Emilio, Brian, Frank, and DannyFunk, it was great to be home.
You can check out Li’s, Tamar’s, and Lee’s pics of the event. As you know, our camera is floating around San Jose with about 5 enourmous pictures on it. 
As a newbie to conferences, I am really in awe of the closeness of the SEO community. There are few industries where you have such a sense of togetherness, whether you work for the same company (I used to be a fashion designer), or even companies where you are “technically” competing against each other. I’m looking forward to being a part of it as it grows. Also I am sure I left out so many great people that I spent time with so if I did – please let me know and I’ll add you in!
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Chris Winfield in Investor’s Business Daily: ‘Microsoft, Yahoo Tailor Ads To Users’ Behavior’
Aug 24, 2007 by Chris Winfield | Press
A couple of weeks ago I spoke to Pete Barlas for an article he was writing on the future of behavioral targeting in the search world. The basic concept behind behavioral targeting search is to show you ads based on your previous search history (what you like and don’t like) so that there is a better chance of you clicking on that ad.
“If you were online searching for a car, the next time you were online you would see ads for car loans and auto dealers served up to you automatically,” said Chris Winfield, president of Web marketing firm 10e20.
My friend Frank Watson is quite passionate about this subject and I asked Pete to also speak with him. Frank’s thoughts are in the article:
Advertisers such as Forex Capital Markets are testing behavioral targeting. The global currency trading firm devotes half its online ad budget to display ads, and it’s looking for any edge to reach customers, says Frank Watson, Forex’s director of search marketing. “We test everything; that’s the only way you stay in front,” he said. “It’s another way to reach out to the demographic that we want.”
If you’re interested in learning more about this, you can read the full article online here or Frank’s post on the Search Engine Watch blog here.
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Looking for that 15 minutes of fame? Well this tutorial won’t show you that, but it will give you a quick way to style your photos into a piece of Pop art.
1. Convert your photo to black and white or monochrome if it is not already. An easy way to do this is by opening the Hue and Saturation palette and sliding the saturation all the way to the left. Rename the layer ‘main photo’.
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2. Create a New Adjustment Layer and make it for Threshold. Use the options box to manipulate the image to how you like it, but try and leave some detail.
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3. Set the Opacity of the Threshold Layer to %50 and duplicate the main photo layer. Select the Burn Tool brush and set it to Midtones. Paint over ares that may need more detail, maybe the hair or face. Set the Threshold Layer’s Opacity back to %100.
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4. Select the Threshold layer and using the Magic Wand Tool click on the black of the image. Go to Select/Inverse. With the selection in place create a new blank layer and using the color of your choice fill in the selection.
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5. Make sure that the default Black White colors are on in the Tool Bar Palette. With this new color fill layer selected go to Filter/Sketch/Halftone Pattern and click OK on the defaults. Now go to Edit/Fade Halftone Pattern, select Color Burn and lower the opacity slightly.
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6. With the Threshold Layer selected create the background color by either selecting with the Magic Lasso Tool or using the Magic Wand Tool and clicking on the black part and then going to Select/Similar. Now go to Select/Inverse and fill in the color you want with the Paint Bucket or Shape Tool.
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You can also flatten all the layers and then go back to step 5 and apply the Halftone Pattern again and use different options for the Fade settings to further push the effect.
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My wife Danielle and I are getting ready to head out to California for Search Engine Strategies San Jose which starts Monday. If you are going to be attending please be sure to say hello if you see me. I have a pretty loaded week with a bunch of meetings already setup but the majority of my time is always spent networking and meeting new people. So if you’re around be sure to say HI and let’s see how we can help eachother out.
Hint – mention this post and the first drink is on me
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I will be writing a monthly column for Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land as part of their Let’s Get Social weekly feature. My first column ran today is titled How To Win Friends And Influence People In Social News Networks:
Still wondering why you submit an article on Digg or Reddit and it goes nowhere? The key, as with most things in life, is who you know. But as with links, clients or affiliates: you want quality over quantity. You want people who are active and have strong profiles. So how do you go about building your network? Here are 11 ways to get started.
I wrote this article to give people some real tried and true ways as to how to build stronger profiles and networks on the social news sites. Don’t forget the social part in social media
Check out the article here or the discussion here on Sphinn.com and look out for my monthly column at Search Engine Land.
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A great way to convert photographs into colorful variations is to use the color balance adjustment to tone the shadows and highlights of your image into two different colors.
The Tone Effect technique can give your images a Pop art look or an aged mono/duo toned looked. Great way to further stylize a photograph and create something new and add some creative flair.
Step 1. Open your photo and adjust the Levels and or Curves. Make the Shadows the darkest areas and the highlights the whitest.
Step 2. Open your photo and convert it into a grayscale or black and white image. Go to Image/Adjustment/Hue Saturation and slide the saturation slider all the way down to the left. Or you can go to Image/Mode/Grayscale then you will have to convert it back into RGB, it will retain the new color mode of the grayscale though but it can now be colorized.
Step 3. Apply an Adjustment Layer of Color Balance to this layer. Go to Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Color Balance.
Step 4. Select the Shadows option in the Tone Balance part and slide the color sliders to the color you want to fill for the shadows. Do the same for the Highlights.
Step 5. Make a final adjustment to the Curves and also give it some more contrast if you feel it could use the extra pop.
Step 6. A trick I use to create some additional graphical quality to the photo is using the Threshold adjustment. Go to Image/Adjustment/Threshold and apply something that still retains some of the detail. Hit OK and then go to Edit/Fade Threshold and change the Mode option from Normal to something like Soft Light or Overlay and lower the opacity down to around 20-40% so that the effect is subtle.
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Round #2 of the 2008 Presidential Candidate Search Marketing Face-Off (see Round 1 here) excites as new debates and mud-slinging color each day’s top news.
As we approach 2008, the primary season heats up spurring evermore intrigue as to how candidate names will be reflected in search. Greg Sterling posted about the CNNYT debate at
In Round #1 covered in June, 2007 with my very basic, “scholastic†rating scale, Barack Obama had the overall most favorable search marketing results, most clearly communicated messages and strategy on page 1 of Google for his name search:
- Obama scored an A-
- Hillary Clinton scored a B+
- Mitt Romney scored a B
- Rudy Giuliani scored a B-
Each of the candidates holds either the top 1 or 2 or both spots on the organic listings, so that’s positive for all of them and a strong foundation for their campaigns.
It should be noted that in my coverage of this Presidential candidate name search, I am searching the Presidential candidate names from
So following is a summary of what I see to date :
Candidate #1: Rudy Giuliani
#1 Organic Result – Official website www.joinrudy2008.com
(note: at one point in the day the #1 result was pushed by Google One Box with News Results)
#2 Organic Result – Wikipedia Page
#3 Organic Result – Bio from NYC Government site.
SERP Results – 2.2 mm
Stats on Canidate’s Official Website:
PageRank – 6
Age of Website – 2007 (formerly showed 1998)
Official Site Using Google AdWords? – Yes
Official Site AdWords Top Result Copy –
Join Team Rudy in ‘08
Support Mayor Rudy Giuliani Contribute Now at the Official Site
Search Marketing Grade: B
I’m upgrading Giuliani’s team on this round due to a better Paid Search call to action and some other positive organic results which they may or may not be fully influencing. At this phase of the campaign it’s all about fund-raising. In essence most voters know where Rudy stands on issues, so now they are addressing money and fund-raising in the top paid search result. “Contribute Now†is a strong and positive call to action for this sponsored ad copy. They should watch out though because Mitt Romney’s team is buying “Rudy†and “Giulianiâ€-based keywords which display ads for joining and contributing to Mitt’s team. Solution to combat Romney: Spend a little more. Of note: StumbleUpon reviews on Google Result is showing the official site tagged as “Politics†(at least from my account) Results #3 through #6 are showing NYC.gov bio from his mayoral days, Draftrudygiuliani.com and time.com 2001 Person of the Year profile – respectively. These are all solid results and relatively positive developments for the former NYC Mayor.
As well, http://www.rudygiuliani.com/ is still live and pointing to the domainer’s content and that’s just nasty and ugly for Rudy. I’m still asking Rudy to please do something about this. I did a quick domain tools lookup on this one and here you go Rudy:
Registrant:
Zev Adler
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: RUDYGIULIANI.COM
Created on: 25-Aug-98
Expires on: 24-Aug-14
Last Updated on:
Read more about Zev Adler and other cybersquatters here in the Sydney Morning Herald and from time to time how to think about protecting your brand through the use of domains.
Candidate #2: Hillary Clinton
#1 Organic Result – Official website with great site links www.hillaryclinton.com
#2 Organic Result- official campaign site
#3 Organic Result- official Senate site
Stats on Candidate’s Official Website:
SERP Results – 14.3 mm
PR – 6
Age of Website – 12/1998 (Formerly was showing 2001)
Using Google AdWords? – Yes, but not when I searched during this post! That’s a problem.
StubleUpon reviews is showing the Tag: “Politicsâ€
Search Marketing Grade: B+
Site links are still appearing strong below Hillary’s official site in the #1 Google spot, so this is a great thing for her campaign. News results are coming in #4 on Google and it’s probably better that the official site is outranking news results on Google, this way there is a bit more control over the message of the candidate. The description of the site uses the words “Exploratory Committee†and perhaps there is a way that they team can use that ever so coveted description in a better way? The fact that this site is still ranking #1 on the name search is great. As of this time of this post there are no Google page 1 paid ranking showing here in NY and this is not a great thing for Senator Clinton. So a positive and a negative on the search marketing effort cancel each other out and
It would be interesting to see if Senator Clinton could get a link from her senate site – perhaps on her bio to say that she’s a “Candidate for the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States in 2008†and link perhaps her Bio Page on the Senate site over to her official campaign homepage. This may not be possible, but it is worth a try and may continue to yield consistent positive promotion of both sites.
Candidate #3: Mitt Romney
#1 Organic Result – Official campaign website www.mittromney.com
#2 Organic Result – Official campaign site interior link; Mitt’s biography.
#3 Organic Result – Wikipedia page
SERP Results – 2.37 mm
Stats on Candidate’s Official Website:
PR – 6
Age of Website – 2002
Using Google AdWords? – Yes, more aggressively in this round.
Official Site AdWords Top Result Copy:
Romney for America
MittRomney.com Bold Leadership, American Values. True Strength for
StubleUpon reviews is showing the Tag: “Politicsâ€
Search Marketing Grade: B+
Mitt gets upgraded in this round from B to B+ as he’s being more aggressive with AdWords, and he now his official campaign website holds the top 2 spots on Google. His bio page continues to come up in the #2 spot on Google search which is extremely important for people who are just learning about the candidate.
Candidate #4: Barack Obama
#1 Organic Result – Official campaign website www.barackobama.com
#2 OrganicResult – Official campaign site interior link
#3 Organic Result – Wikipedia page
SERP Results – 2.82 mm
Stats on Candidate’s Official Website:
PR – 7
Age of Website – is now showing 4/2004 and was showing 3/2002
Official Site Using Google AdWords? – Yes
Official Site AdWords Copy?
Get to Know Barack Obama
BarackObama.com Learn more about Senator Obama at campaign events: Register Online
StubleUpon reviews is showing the Tag: “Liberal Politicsâ€
Search Marketing Grade: A-
Obama has maintained the very compelling title: Welcome to Obama for
One area that they really have improved is they now hold the #2 spot with the official site over the Wikipedia result. Same as Romney, it’s the bio page. Google may have tweaked the results pages to show more relevant campaign information, but I trust also that there is work going on to promote the bios and that’s very smart on the search manager’s part. So, this campaign is still performing quite well and while it does not deserve a huge upgrade, it can certainly remain right were it is.
Round #2 sees that Obama is still the leader with an A- Grade in this Presidential Candidate Name-Search Face-off.
- Obama remains at A-
- Hillary Clinton remains at B+
- Mitt Romney is upgraded to B+
- Rudy Giuliani is upgraded to B
Some may ask: well, why is the top grade only an A-. I say, we’re not on a curve folks; this is the President we’re talking about. No A’s or A+’s handed out until we’re filling the first page with positive and official results.
Also interesting in this is how quickly the size of Google’s SERP page index is growing although I haven’t spent the time to check the percentage of page growth on the name search.
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Before the ‘Digg effect’ you were ’slashdotted’. Slashdot was the first big boy on the social news scene offering a unique combination of user-submitted and editor-evaluated news. Then along came Digg and their brand of completely user-driven content (with no apparent editors) and they quickly rose to the top of the heap.
After watching Digg’s quick ascent and massive popularity, Slashdot began experimenting with a system that would give their users much more “say” in what is seen. The new system is called Slashdot Firehose and was just taken out a beta of sorts (only logged in members could see it) and launched today. So what is it exactly?
The Slashdot Firehose is a way for you to participate in the Slashdot editorial process. You are able to see all the content submitted to Slashdot: from RSS Feeds and user submissions, to journal entries and successful completed Slashdot stories.
You can participate by voting on these entries: click the minus icon if you don’t think the story is great for Slashdot, and click the plus if you do. Better yet, when you make these choices you can help further refine your decision by clarifying why you made the choice you did. You can tell us if a story was binspam, or a dupe, or insightful. If you don’t like the options provided in the pop-up windows, you can always open the tagging box and provide whatever tags you think will help Slashdot Editors, and other Slashdot Readers make informed decisions about the content they are reading.
So does this now make Slashdot just another one of the countless “Digg clones”? Refreshingly, they actually answer this question (without using Digg’s name of course).
Well first of all, we’re happy to use good ideas when we see them. Countless websites have knocked off our cool ideas, just like we joyously took ideas from those that came before us. But ultimately the idea here is not to imitate any other social network news site. We feel that the editorial layer that exists on top of Slashdot is important.
Slashdot still has a very big and smart audience and it can drive really qualified traffic (and links) for your site. It will be really interesting to see if they can gain ground on Digg and still keep their reputation as having a very high signal to noise ratio.
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Many times when I talk to people about social networking they think that it’s something that “only kids” are doing. Or that its confined to the US. Well, yesterday ComScore released information from a new study showing the expansion of social networking throughout the world. The study is focused on the major social networking sites and shows that they have experienced major growth in the past year.
Social networking behemoth MySpace.com attracted more than 114 million global visitors age 15 and older in June 2007, representing a 72-percent increase versus year ago. Facebook.com experienced even stronger growth during that same time frame, jumping 270 percent to 52.2 million visitors. Bebo.com (up 172 percent to 18.2 million visitors) and Tagged.com (up 774 percent to 13.2 million visitors) also increased by orders of magnitude.
As you can see from the chart below, social networking is growing at a rapid pace around the world:
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As ComScore’s Bob Ivins says: “social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very fabric of the global Internet.†Is your business a part of that fabric?
Read the full study breakdown here via ComScore.
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