Search Engine Marketing Training Classes Coming to NY!

Do you attend Search Engine Conferences and leave feeling you wanted more?

Do you know the basics of Search Engine Marketing and want to learn more advanced techniques?

Are you a business owner with an online presence who would like to learn more about Online Marketing?

Are you an Online Marketing Manager who would like to learn more about what your staff or outsourced solution is doing for you?

Are you a Web designer that would like to master Search Engine Optimization?

Do you work in New York and want to take a 2 day intensive training course on Online Marketing?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, WebmasterWorld's Pubcon and SEOClass have a solution! (I mention this solution because I am one of the trainers) Our New York Search Engine Marketing Training Class will be held July 30th -31st at the Affinia Hotel in Manhattan.

There are only 2 days left to save $1000 on the course!

Please contact me directly if you are interested in discounts for multiple attendees from the same organization. Seating is limited to 50 people. This will be extremely hands-on training with live examples and time to examine many of the attendees' Web sites.

If you are interested in Online Marketing and want to learn from real experts that will not hold anything back, this is the event for you!

My Friends Keeps Asking Me What I Think About The IPhone

Apple did a marvelous job changing the mp3 player world with the Ipod. Are they locked and loaded to do it again with cell phones and mobile Web devices? It sure looks like it!

My first concern about the Iphone centers around the browser. The commercials are really pushing the Web aspect, but the phone will use the Safari browser. Until recently, the only way to see what a Web site looks like in Safari, was to own a Mac. Now there is a PC based version of the software. Web designers may be updating sites in the near future to make sure they look great in Safari.

My next concern is about the lack of a keyboard. Ipods proved to be sexy, catchy, and trendy. The Iphone is following the same path. It looks clean, simple, and easy to use. My question is without a keyboard, how easy and realistic is it to type, text message, or email?

The Iphone could be the boost Mobile Advertisers have been looking for. If this phone does catch on with any of the popularity of the Ipod, a revolution is about to occur. Palms, Blackberrys, Smartphones, and other mobile Web devices have not been adopted by the masses. There have been many challenges for Mobile Marketers because of the variety of platforms and access. If the Iphone becomes very popular and widely used, a new channel for marketing will explode.

Some questions still exist...

For corporate users how will it work with Exchange?

Will it play nicely with Microsoft products to sync calendars, contacts, and tasks?

Will Itunes be the PC interface vs a more traditional ActiveSync type of program?

Will there be an Iphone Nano? (Just Kidding or Maybe Not)

Coming June 29th 2007!

MySpace just blasted SEO efforts

I just noticed this, new links in Myspace profiles are being converted to www.msplinks.com/uniquecode. This change will effectively negate all search link value for links in the profiles and comments.

Obviously there is still potential for good traffic from regular Myspace traffic.

I really liked setting up Corporate Myspace accounts... Time to move on.

This must be a huge red flag for the adoption rate of link building through Web 2.0 sites. If Myspace sticks with this new plan for links, it is likely that other popular sites will follow (Friendster, Facebook, Linkedin, etc).

Hosted Exchange - Smart Phones - Working From Home

Hosted Exchange may be one of my favorite technical developments in the last few years. I was certified as a Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator in 1999. I was an avid user of the product for a while, but if the domain was large enough it could be a full time job just to administer the server. Two years ago I started looking at the early adopters of Hosted Exchange solutions. Both Asp One and 123 Together were ahead of the curve.

Hosted Exchange means getting all the value of Microsoft's product without any of the admin headaches. Some of the features include Outlook Web Access, shared calendars, shared contact lists, backups, Blackberry support and more!

During my recent quest to become even more tied to my company, I decided it was time to use a hosted exchange solution myself. I went with Hostway's solution. They recently purchased a local company that I was very familiar with (Affinity Internet). My plan is $10/month for 500 megs of storage and one mailbox. The icing on the cake came when I found out that since my Motorola Q Phone uses Windows ME and Active Sync, the is no addition fee for mobile access. Now I can be offshore catching sailfish and actively managing my email and PPC accounts right from my phone!

If you are interested in learning more about Hosted Exchange Solutions, please contact me. I have been in charge of several large implementations that worked out flawlessly.

Trip to the Florida Keys - A Little Fishing and a Little Search

I had the pleasure of spending last weekend in the Florida Keys with a business associate who is also my fishing buddy. Tony Cuozzo is a religious user of Yahoo's XML Feeds (Search Submit Pro) through MoreVisibility. His web site is FastFloors.com - a leading provider of hard wood floors online.

My family stayed at his family's home, which he also rents: House for rent in the keys (you can check out the pictures and rates). It was an awesome house in a great neighborhood in Islamorada. Tony took me out on his 33' Grady White Express (with a tower!) to the Islamorada hump to fish. We ended up in a nice school of Dolphin (Mahi Mahi) and kept a few for dinner. We also saw a beautiful small Blue Marlin jumping very near the boat.

While not fishing, we did discuss quite a few items releated to Search Engine Marketing. He is extremely pleased with Omniture and their tools. He is also impressed with an open source CRM software called Sugar CRM. I always value Tony's insight and innovation as it relates to ecommerce and tracking. He is currently working on a patent on a method to assign ROI to multiple keywords based on a matrix of how and when the user came to the site.

It was great getting down to the Florida Keys, fishing, and talking shop with a good friend!

Top Secret WebmasterWorld Meeting at WMW Headquarters in Austin, TX

(The WebmasterWorld Brass and me!)

I had the pleasure of joining a strategy meeting in Austin, TX (The Headquarters of Brett Tabke's WebmasterWorld) a few months ago. I was sworn by a blood oath not to discuss many of the elements of our strategies. I can let you know that all efforts were geared to making the next Pubcon even better than the past ones!

The dates are set! WebmasterWorld's Pubcon 2007 will be in Las Vegas, Dec 4- 7 2007. The available tracks are being expanded and fine tuned. It will be another great event for Web publishers, online marketers, and just about anyone who loves (needs) Web traffic.

As a regular moderator of the sessions, I get a good amount of feedback from attendees. We are going to do even more this year to promote networking. Since I am also a techie, I am well aware of the challenges of getting certain personality types to leave their comfort zone or crack their shell. There are lots of new friendships and business relationships to be made at Pubcon. We will do our best to faciliate that process while providing one of the most educational conference around!

How to Access Google Adwords from a Smart Phone

I was never a fan of gadgets. I spend most of my days in front of a computer as it is, I do not need to be any more "integrated into the Web" than I already am. Well that was my thought until I started working full time for myself. I realized that being able to work while not being in the office was a blessing. I started with a laptop and then worked my way to a Motorola Q phone from Sprint. First think I did was check my Web site on the browser and I was pretty impressed with how well it worked. Then I installed Google Maps and became REALLY impressed.

I was on my way down to the Florida Keys this past weekend (That will be the subject of my next Blog post) when I client called and asked me to pause his Google AdWords campaign. I was on the road, so I tried to do it from my phone's browser. It did not work.

Yesterday I searched Google for "Windows Mobile and AdWords", the first result was from Webmasterworld. I quickly learned that the Opera Browser works fine with Google AdWords. I installed it, tested it, and bingo! Now when I am on the road, I can do any type of emergency work on AdWords. I imagine I would only use it for pausing and un-pausing campaigns.

Thank you Opera!

Sopranos, The End - Don't Stop Believing

So my predictions and thoughts were not exactly on target about the end of the season and the character "exits". Junior Soprano coming back into play in the last episode was a major surprise for me. The best I can tell was that he was used as a part of Tony's closure and happy ending. I don't think it was quite necessary though, I liked his first exit better.

I was also wrong about the time jump, but I have a few reasons on why it would have worked better. The decision to whack Phil originally was for Tony's crew's survival. When the sit down happened with the rest of the NY family (one of the greatest scenes of the episode), the decision to wipe out the boss of the NY family seemed hasty at best. Phil may have been a little nuts (still celebrating his dead brother's birthday), but unless the NY family really felt the heat, were loosing members to a war, or loosing a lot of money because of the war - why kill the boss? In a hurried storyline, Tony Soprano is more important and powerful then the boss of the NY family? That pill is a little hard to swallow. While most of the show seemed realistic enough about wise guy B.S., the hit I am not so sure about. Plus, looking back, the Soprano crew has almost whacked the other two bosses (Carmine and Johnny Sac) and one point, but never had to follow through.

"We are going to win this thing!" You would think that quote coming out of an FBI's mouth would have been about catching Tony, but it felt more about NJ beating NY. It was cool though...

I was right about the "family" aspect of the show. The last episode put all of the Soprano family back together. Janice was going to be a responsible mom. Meadow was going to fight for the rights of Italians as a lawyer (don't even get me started on the irony of her reasoning), A.J. was back on track, Carmella is happy with her Real Estate, and Tony won.

That is where the show made a significant twist. The entire season was seemed to be leading to a tragedy. In the end, Tony won. There was a happy ending. A family was just having a dinner together and eating some onion rings. Phil is gone, the junkie nephew is gone, the goofy brother in law is gone, his shrink is gone, his mother is gone, his uncle was mentally gone; but the nuclear family was still in tact.

David Chase created an amazing phenomenon. The Sopranos is probably one of the top ten brands of the last decade and sits up there with Google and Ipod. The ending of the show will probably be debated for years. It just ended on the words "Don't Stop" from a Journey song as his daughter joined the family for dinner. The whole world was probably holding their breath. We were teased with the possibility of an assassin, or a car accident, but it just ended. Why not end it that way? The show started that way. We got to be part of the Sopranos world for a brief period of time. Maybe there will be movies? Maybe there will be specials? Maybe we will never see a new Soprano moment again?

It was fun while it lasted.

I have not read anything else about the finale yet. I wanted to get my thoughts up first. I will probably write about this topic once or twice more. I am sure there is more to say - Don't stop believing.

Should Web Marketers Know What Their Mcafee Risk Factor Is?

The quick answer is yes. I recently purchased a new Gateway Laptop. It came with Vista and a McAfee trial. I noticed while looking at search results that there were little green markings. At first I thought it was a "Vista Thing", but turns out it was a rating system by McAfee to warn users of potential spammy / spyware Web sites. I did not like the functionality, so it was disabled. After thinking about it, wouldn't you like to know if your site was not "green"?

This comes to mind because of an email I just received about Spyware still plaguing searches. This article reassured my initial concern that marketers really need to know how popular third party tools may be affecting their links.

If you do not know how your site ranks, find someone with McAfee and make sure you are in the clear.

Sopranos - 2nd to Last Episode

From time to time I will write about topics other than SEM. Tonight's post has to be about the 2nd to last Sopranos Episode. I have been told by quite a few people that they feel I am a maven. I am certainly a maven when it comes to food, but I think I am also a Sopranos expert. It is extremely sad to see this amazing phenomena in our history coming to an end. I have a few thoughts to share.

I have been closely watching this season thinking about the end of the show and what was going to happen. When we last saw Junior Soprano, he was sitting in a metal institution stroking a cat. At that point I realized that was his "exit". That was the last time we would see Junior Soprano in the history of the series (barring some strange twist in the last episode). There have been a few other exits that are worthy of mention. Johnny Sac's exit was in a prison hospital dying of cancer. Christopher's exit was dying partially by the hand of Tony and partially drowning in his own blood.

Tonight there were even more exits as the show wraps up. I believe Dr. Melfi's exit was with the close of her door to Tony. She gave up and was beaten. Bobby's exit was a little more dramatic - he died defenselessly in a hobby shop. Silvio may have exited in a violent shootout where at least he got a few shots off, but he may end up in a coma state for the remainder of his days.

So what happens in the Sopranos Season Finale? Looking at the season to date, each character's exit has been sad. There has been no happy endings. No one has had that "new start" or "sunrise" that Tony saw in the desert. Does Tony die? Does he find a way to leave the life and start over? Does he wipe out the NY family and take over? One more week and we will find out.

I think the last episode jumps ahead a few months. I think a war may have raged on and taken tolls on NY and NJ. I dare not suggest anything more than that. The series ends in 7 days. This will be a long 7 days to wait...

One more thing to consider is that the series was about family. The Mob backdrop was always exciting, but not what it was all about. We will have to see what is left of both Soprano Families in the end (blood family and crime family).