Please RSVP before Monday, July 26th by sending an email to griffin.nate@gmail.com or replying in the comments so we can give them an accurate head count.

Hope to see you there!

Oh and we have been hearing whisperings of tons of companies looking for good search marketers in Austin. Are you or someone you know looking? Let us know! And if you have an open position, we’ll be sending out an email soon. If you want your job listing in that email, contact me katemorris at gmail dot com.

January 26th, 2010 February 1, 2010 – Write it down. Happy Hour for the New Year.

More details to come, but it’ll be some place in Austin, with drinks, and food, and search marketers kicking back.

UPDATE: We will be at Chuy’s on 183 after work on Monday Feb 1. Come join us!

It’s almost that time!

The AustinSEM BBQ/Potluck will be held at Jack Leblond’s house on October 24th at 11am. Time to be determined once the Longhorn’s determine when they are playing Missouri that day. Remember that families are welcome! Just be sure to let us know how many are coming.

If you are planning on attending, sign up for what you are bringing ASAP. It’s first come, first serve. We will email you with a total head count a few days before.

Can’t wait to meet everyone!

Alright, to start with is the September plans. On September 29th we will be meeting at NXNW in North Austin off of Loop 360. You can find more information on their site (directions, menu, etc.). Be there around 6pm! I’ll update the site when I get there with our location. Check out twitter as well.

October BBQ!

We had a great idea. Socials are always after work. So we are doing a BBQ at Jack Leblond’s house on October 24, 2009, weather permitting. More details to come, but if you want to be updated personally, shoot me an email that you are interested. katemorris at gmail dot com

November Social

For November, we will be having our “What Happened at PubCon” Social. There are tons of people going this year. If you are interested in going and need help convincing a boss or something let me know. There are tons of members that can provide proof of this conference’s value. Taylor Pratt and myself are speaking too! If you can make the trip to Vegas, it’ll be a great time. If not, we’ll keep ya updated on events and news.

Tentative Date: November 17th, 2009

December Party!

Not calling it a Christmas party, but we’ll so something special for that time of year. If you want to help plan, please let me know! katemorris at gmail dot com

Tentative Date: December 29th, 2009

Where: Opal Divine, Marina – 12709 Mopac & Parmer Lane
When: 6pm-ish, Tuesday, August 25th

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Place: Third Base
1717 West 6th Street
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 476-2273

Please note that we welcome all Austin area search marketing professionals. We want to keep these events to those working in the space, no salesmen, etc.

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May Social Pictures

We had a fantastic time last month at Third Base doing the Table Topics (thanks Nadia!), and now it’s time to kick back and relax. There is graduation going on, Summer Break, and school is out. Let’s celebrate spring (already feels like summer) in style with a good old fashioned social. Hope to see everyone there with some search marketing friends.

Where: Cool River Cafe, Austin (Thanks for the suggestion Matt!)
When: 6pm-ish, Tuesday, May 26th
RSVP: Email katemorris at the Google mail … if you are attending please, or comment.
(And be sure you are signed up with the group to get all emails and reminders!)

Please pass this along to everyone you know in Austin in the search marketing industry. Just as a reminder, this group is for search marketing professionals. We welcome everyone from beginners to advanced, but try to keep it to those who perform search marketing related tasks. Invite in-house people you know … and agencies, grab your specialists. We want them to learn, we want to learn from them. This is a group just for those of us that are tackling the exciting world of search marketing!

Analytics – What should be tracked to successfully measure an SEO campaign?

Best Answer: Brian Rutledge – Track what it is you are monetizing, be it a lead or a sale. Newsletters, information, whatever will lead to a sale for you.

Other Answers
Matt Reid – Track the keywords that are leading visitors to your site.
Abel Alvarado – Track your competitors and the phrases they are competing with you on.
David Ogletree – Check your log files! Check for referrers from 404s and 301 redirect those to gain link value.
Brian Combs – Track your conversions to have a better view of your sales funnel.

On-site optimization – What are three steps to transition to a new domain name?

Best Answer: Brian Rutledge – Map site directly over with the same structure using 301 redirects. Then contact link partners to change links to new domain.

Other Answers
Larry Tamkin – You must prepare the domain for the new shift. It’s a big change in the life of the domain and much care is needed to transition it to its new role in life. Perhaps contact a domain psychologist to set up daily sessions to talk about the new challenges and road blocks ahead for the domain. (Yes, this answer was a joke, laugh.)
Kate Morris – Keep both sites up and running if you are changing hosting as well as the domain. A recent change of domain and hosting resulted in a week of updating DNS and search results. Keep mirrors running on both ends until you get all lose ends tied up when it comes to DNS changes.

SEO Myths – What is keyword density and how is it important to SEO?

Best Answer: David Ogletree – It’s about stemming which is the repeating of key phrases different ways. Focus on the topic not a specific key phrase.

Other Answers
Dan Crean – it is defined as the percentage of keywords focused to total number of words. Was relevant back in the day, but isn’t anymore.
Brian Rutledge – You don’t “need” to look at it anymore because you already know. For long tail, there is a sweet spot of density, but as search marketers we are just used to seeing it now. The theme of the site can dominate the page in results no matter the topic of the page.
Keith Goode – Begs to differ and says that with listing sites there is a focus for keyword density. There does seem to be a correlation. It does depend on the site.

Paid Search – What are the components that affect paid search quality score?

Best Answer: Brian Combs – There are actually two pieces to the paid search quality score. One is related to ad cost and the other to placement in rankings. If you end up having isses, your AdWords rep can help.

Other Answers
Moses Chang – Determining factors are account, keyword, and ad text. [Editors note, landing page is also taken into account]
David Ogletree – CTR is the biggest determining factor.

Blogging – Is creating a blog good for SEO?

Best Answer: Ashton Verrengia – Yes. Using them as a part of the whole campaign is good.

Other Answers
Keith Goode – yes it helps, but that’s because that’s the only part of the site that gets updated on a regular basis.
Dan Crean – I’m skeptical. It has to be used in the right way for it to be effective. It’s not about the updating, it’s the quality of the information in the blog.
Brian Rutledge – For people on a budget, getting someone to do a good SEO friendly blog is the best investment.
David Ogletree – Use a subdomain – blog.domain.com so that it ranks well in addition to your domain.

Conferences – Name the two best SEM related conferences.

Best Answer: Kate Morris – It depends on where you are in your career. Advanced professionals should attend SMX Advanced and PubCon Vegas for the best information and networking.

Other Answers
Larry Tamkin – What is SEM?
David Ogletree – SES and PubCon; SES to get clients and PubCon to learn.

Paid Links – What are they and what do SEs think?

This was a huge debate, so calling it a draw
David Chang – Popular bloggers post links for to profit on their blogs and SEs don’t like this practive cause it’s not quality content.
David Ogletree – Google is cracking down on it big time, but still effective.
Nadia King – It’s just advertising … we have to play by the rules. But a good link is a good link.
Brian Rutledge – Not sure Google cares, they don’t remove them. Wants the buyers to be kicked as well.

Paid Search – Two ads on same keyword, good or bad?

Best Answer: Kate Morris – it’s possible, but takes much setup in the way of having two separate sites, accounts, and ads. The platform has to not be able to tell its you multiple times. Won’t be caught by algo, but if hand checked can get you in some trouble. Besides, it’s not the trouble, you could be doing yourself a disservice. It’s more shelf space yes, but sometimes too much work for it. Get affiliates!

Other Answers
Brian – It’s not good or bad, but you are pushing up your own cost of doing business
David Ogletree – You can have 10 if you want.

Analytics – Best package on the market?

Best Answer: Keith Goode – Omniture, but GA is best. GA uses sampled data, it’s not 100% accurate

Other Answers
David Ogletree – Weblog Expert – Log analyzer, customized reports, web interface, Ghost.com
Larry Tamkin – Core Metrics
Dan Crean – Webtrends. I don’t want Google to know all that stuff.

Pictures

Thanks to Keith Goode for taking pictures!

Annoucements	Get Page One Boys
Brian Combs	Moses Chang