Q&A Session

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

Our new event is coming up on April 21st at Third Base. Don’t miss it. Missed the email? Join up and you’ll get all the announcements from now on. We just bypassed the 50 member mark. I know there are more Search Marketing professionals in Austin!

Until then, here is the email you missed along with the details of the event.

Can’t wait to see you there.

So we haven’t had any events lately … I am blaming that on the short month, my own busy-ness, and the fact that Austin is being invaded this week. PubCon South starts on Wednesday (I hear there MIGHT be a few more spots open, so sign up now!) and then SXSWi starts Friday/Saturday.

In light of the parties that are happening, and the wide variety of talent invading Austin, we are skipping what was to be a planned event this month and moving it to April. We have a location locked down and an idea to run with. We will be learning, teaching and having fun … and there will be drinks, promise. It’s going to be April 21st at 6pm at Third Base. More details to come after this week.

For the events of this week, check your email for party info, links to more party info, and a details of a small gathering of minds in North Austin on Thursday. I am looking forward to seeing everyone at the events, parties, and just out and about. If you are going to any open events, please post them here for everyone to see, or in the forums for just members.

Remember, if you have that burning question about search marketing and want to hear other’s thoughts, sign up for the AustinSEM forums. The more that our members sign in, answer, and question, the more we get good ideas for our own campaigns.

Nadia recently added a question about Sharepoint. If you have experience with it, login or sign up, and give her your thoughts.

The forums require approval by Kate, so if you don’t hear back within a few hours, comment here and we’ll take care of that immediately. Too many spammers trying to get in means that if you aren’t identifiable, chances are you’ll get rejected.

“Day of” Note:I am here, inside currently on my Mac. This place has plenty of space and parking and heaters on the patio just in case we are out there. From Mopac, take Westover Exit, head towards campus, follow that road until it ends, hang a left, follow that until it ends, hang a right. That’s 29th St. Go past Lamar, and the next light will be Rio Grande. You’ll see it on the right.

It’s time to prepare for the invasion on Austin and get the word out about
AustinSEM.

PubCon South is coming to Austin in March and we have the hook up to event
news. It’s time to get read for the onslaught. How do we do that? Well
socialize of course. We have to prepare right? In true AustinSEM fashion, we
will get together, talk about whatever is on our minds and prepare for
the coming year. What do you guys want this to be? Bring ideas and a drive
to make this the most worthy group you’ve ever joined. Oh, and tell your
friends, we’d love to meet everyone in Austin that does Internet Marketing!

Where: Drango’s Ice House, 29th and Rio Grande, Austin
http://www.drungoicehouse.com/
(Thanks for the suggestion Jeremy!)
When: 6pm-ish, Wednesday, January 28th
RSVP: Email katemorris at gmail dot com if you are attending please or comment here.

Directions to
2828 Rio Grande St. Austin, TX

Well we got together. We drank. We talked. We didn’t get to review PubCon though. Sorry everyone. It was just too noisy of a venue. So I am postponing that topic to next time when I find a better venue for roundtable discussion. Anyone wanna help me with that? Please?

For now here are some pictures from the event taken by Keith Goode. Thanks Keith!

UPDATE: We are inside for right now, on the right hand side.

The next event has been planned for a while, it just took me getting to Vegas to have time to mention it. I hope everyone can join us for a PubCon recap next Thursday, November 20th! We’ll keep it low key like always and just get together at Draught House. Taylor Pratt, Dan Crean, and myself all attended PubCon this week and our own Brett Tabke ran the entire thing. Biggest show of the year and tons of fun so far!

Email me if you’re coming by Wednesday, November 19th katemorris at gmail.com. I sent out an email today, if you aren’t getting our emails sign up here. And tell friends! Remember, we want to keep it to the SEO/M community, but we want everyone in the space. Invite co-workers!

Date: November 20th
Time: 6pm – ish
Place: Draught House (near Burnet and 45th)
4112 Medical Pkwy
Austin, TX 78756


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I had heard that you all wanted a forum to discuss things (cough … Brett … cough), ask questions, and just chat. Well, we put one up finally. Please register and get to asking those questions and interacting. If you see any issues, please let me know. You can also talk to @pratt, he’s a moderator as well.

We are really excited to get all of this going and hope it’s as beneficial to you as hoped. Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement about the next event. I’ll be out at PubCon the second week of November. If you’re going to be there let me know, you can heckle me at my sessions.

If anyone ever wants to post something here, just drop me a line, be happy to get you a login.

We had a blast night and Third Base was great getting everything set up for us. I gotta say, I was very impressed by the food there too. Stay tuned for what we will be doing next month (or later this month really). If you have ideas/suggestions on place/time/topic please let me know!

Eugene took some pictures and has graciously posted them on Facebook for us. Check them out, and here are a few of my favorites.

[caption id="attachment_48" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Taylor Pratt listening intently to Jeremy Benken"][/caption]

Date: October 2, 2008

Time: 6:00pm

Place: Third Base
WE ARE OUTSIDE ON THE DECK
1717 West 6th Street
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 476-2273

RSVP: Please email and let me know if you will attend, just need an idea for Third Base that morning. Email katemorris at gmail dot com

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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