We’ve got an interesting topic tomorrow (Thursday the 4^th) at the SEO Meetup.  If you are in the Charlotte area, check out the Charlotte SEO Meetup.

David Kyle is brilliant with search engines and has a fantastic topic to speak on.  He will be going over how some are exploiting PPC and what to look for in click fraud.

By the way, I’ll be doing the January 8 meetup.  It will be an interview with some local Charlotte Twitter Experts.

Both of these events will be streamed live via UStream.  So be sure to sign up if you are interested.

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It seems to be that Google is starting to take a much stronger interest in sending out Google AdWords “Optimization Specialists”.

I’ve been handling from five to twenty AdWords accounts now for about five years.  Some of these are quite small, but others are quite large.  I’ve been a Google AdWords Professional for about two years.  In all that time, and for all my clients, I have maybe had one person from Google contact me – EVER!

In fact, getting the grand privilege of talking to ANYONE at Google has not been easy and tends to only happen at the conferences.

However, in the last month or so, I have had two or three phone calls from Google asking if one of their own “Optimization Specialists” could give recommendations and implement some “industry standards” to improve my accounts.  Interestingly, it was for the the accounts that spend the most money.

So what gives?  Why now?

I think we all know why.

So what should you do if they come for you?

Overall, I think this is a good thing.  If you have not gotten decent training on how to do Google AdWords right, any help should be appreciated.  After all, you don’t HAVE to do what they recommend.  You can always go back to what you had – and it’s free.

Yet, if you are fully trained and competent at AdWords, you might be better off doing the things you know you need to do.

In my experience, these AdWords specialists are going to do some things that generally work well in AdWords.  But you (or your specialist that works with you well) knows your industry better than they do.

I hope that most all of my students are able to know what they should be doing in AdWords to improve their campaigns already.  They do not need outside assistance. 

If not, please contact me.

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Seth Godin blogged this morning that Google is now letting users interact with search results, wiki style.  True.  He added that “You can vote them up and down and leave comments.”  True also.  (See the official Google post here.)

However, he incorrectly added “And they will be seen by others”.  False!

Sorry Seth.  I love your books.  I love your blog.  You’re famous.  But you made a pretty big mistake here.  So far, Google has specifically stated in their blog that “The changes you make only affect your own searches.”

Now, as SEO’s, we all know that Google’s goal is quite likely to “improve their search results” by observing which sites get promoted up and down and which ones get removed. 

Will we try to “game” this to advance our own sites and the sites of our clients?  Uh…  Yea, at least some will!

But to come right out of the gate the first morning and state that changing your search results will mean that others see those changes was not only wrong, it was irresponsible and poor journalism.

No offense, Mr. Godin.  I love your stuff.  Honest.  We all make mistakes.

To all my readers, please go read Seth’s blog and his books.  He is (almost) always right on the money.

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In case you have not heard, Jason Keath was the man behind the inaugural Charlotte WordCamp, which was held on Saturday, November 15, 2008.  The event seemed to be a huge success. 

So below is a brief interview I held with him on Monday, the first working day after the event…  

1.  Jason, when did the idea for holding a Charlotte WordCamp first come to you, and how did it all get started?

My first interest began around March. I commented on some blogs and approached some WP folks about Charlotte as a venue with little response. Which, in all honesty, is pretty fair considering the lack of these types of events in Charlotte in the past.

I shelved the idea until I saw the the WordCamp Central website some time in July. I contacted them and put some feelers out through Twitter. WordPress was very supportive. After I had 40 or so positive Twitter responses, I put up a quick WordPress.com blog. This was back in August. I locked down a keynote speaker with the help of WP pretty quickly. I knew this was very important as a first step. Content is king after all.

I had a great lunch one day with Steve Gunn of the Charlotte Observer in which I mentioned WordCamp as part of our discussion on blogging and that evolved into a venue and date for the event. It was all very organic and from that point on was just a steady buzz, greatly assisted by my existing contacts and the Twitter community.

There was never a large marketing effort for the event, just word of mouth and great supporters.

2.  How did you find sponsors and presenters?

I approached around 30-40 companies to sponsor the event and only received firm support from 3 of them, including the Charlotte Observer as host sponsor. This was the hardest part of the planning process. Most of the people I approached were concerned that the event had no history or guaranteed attendance. I myself thought 40 attendees would be a big success, which can seem insignificant to a sponsor.

My only goal was to make sure the event did not lose money as that would have come out of my personal pockets. And even though our list of sponsors was light, so far it looks like we have crossed the break even mark. In the future I am very confident sponsors will come more easily, considering the success of the event. This should allow us to produce even more high quality programming next iteration.

Getting presenters was simple for the most part. The majority of the presenters are people I already knew through online or offline networking. A couple were from the Observer and 2 others were brought on by Justin Ruckman and his contacts. In all, we had 15 presenters and another 10 volunteers and organizers.

3.  Were you surprised by how many attended?  What about the atmosphere?

I was extremely surprised by the registration success and attendance. 120 people was three times the size I had planned for originally. I don’t take credit for that success though. I think the event was due.  Charlotte was craving some type of Internet tech conference. It was a “build it and they will come” situation.

The atmosphere looked good to me, but I was running around most of the day and had very little time to just mingle and check in with people. Judging from the strong feedback though, everyone enjoyed the networking opportunities.

4.  Who else contributed to the success of the event?

The Observer and Steve Gunn made the event a reality by giving us a free venue. With no budget this was a necessity. Beyond that, all the volunteers and presenters helped in many ways. It was a great community effort. A lot of the content and structure developed from open discussions with people online. It was democratic in many ways.

5.  What did you learn from coordinating an event like this that surprised you? 

The beginners drowned out the experts. Their questions and eagerness to learn made it a little uncomfortable for more advanced conversation to be raised. Having multiple tracks for different experience levels is key for next year’s WordCamp.

Also, Charlotte is more than ready to embrace these types of events on a larger scale. My hope was that WordCamp would be a platform for launching many more Internet and technology events in Charlotte. It is clear that the support is there for this.

6.  This seemed to be the first event like this in Charlotte.  What’s next?  

There is talk of a PodCamp and BarCamp by some people. I will support those for sure. And some smaller WordPress events will definitely start popping up soon.

For me though, the real next steps are a larger new media conference for Charlotte. I want to start bringing bigger name speakers to the Queen City and I want to bring a big name event to the city. Whether it is a franchised event or we have to create our own, it will happen.

Charlotte, as a growing hub of young, creative talent, needs to begin to lead the way more and follow less.

7.  Any other comments you’d like to make?  

I want to thank everyone who helped make the event a success. It was great meeting so many creative and tech savvy Charlotte people. I ask that everyone who supported this event be ready to support whatever comes next and help make it even bigger and more successful.

Thank you, Jason.  I think many of my readers will agree that we look forward to more events like this and appreciate those that put the effort into making them a success.

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As most of you know, I’ve been teaching SEO for several years.  But this year, we made a special effort to create and teach repeatable classes in the Charlotte area.

In doing so, many students have expressed appreciation.  So far, I don’t have an official “testimonials” page on my training site, so I’m going to list a few comments I’ve been getting lately on this blog.

Just last week, I heard from one of our students…

Andy Johns writes in:

Hi Corey, I was in your SEO class in early October…

Since the economic downturn I have been trying to help my dad with his small HVAC business in Toledo OH. I created a website and followed your guide for optimizing for Google local.

I successfully brought his listing up from page 4 to position number 1 for some of his key terms like “Toledo HVAC repair” and “Toledo air conditioner repair”. His site is only a couple pages so far with much more to be added shortly and was just created this weekend with XSitePro (awesome tool btw).

Its not even indexed by Google yet so I am trying to get some links to it. So far I have submitted to several directories and updated his info with various phone book sites to include his web address.

Andy Johns
Toledo Furnace Repair

Congratulations Andy!

I’m glad you are putting the class to good use – not only for your company, but for your family.

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After spending an entire week running around NYC and Massachusetts visiting with friends, it was time to head back home to good ole Charlotte, NC, on Saturday, November 15, 2008.

I was scheduled to fly home on Saturday evening, but when I realized it was the same day as Charlotte WordCamp 2008, I was not happy.  Just a few weeks before, Jason Keath had asked me to present, so I just knew I had to get there earlier.

So I woke up at 4:45 AM and my sister took me to the bus stop in Framingham, MA.  From there, I took a 30 minute bus ride to Logan Airport in Boston.  Thankfully, I got on an early flight and drove straight to the Charlotte Observer, where I made it to Charlotte WordCamp around noon.

I got in just in time to hear someone ask a question about search engines.  Jason was kind enough to point over to me and I was answering a question as soon as I walked in.

I know I missed the first half, but I just had to post about why this was such an awesome event…

1.  Charlotte Observer hosted it.  I can’t emphasize enough how impressive this was to me.  The Charlotte Observer was founded in 1869.  It is the largest newspaper in terms of circulation in all of the Carolinas. 

For them to be open to a “New Media” event, is a real credit to them!

2.  Jason Keath was a fantastic host.  Running an event like this is not easy.  But he made it look easy.  To his credit, he got the ball rolling and let it take shape naturally.  (Much like the Internet, New Media, and Social Media tends to do.)

3.  Charlotte was due.  I strongly believe that the Charlotte area is a great place to live and work.  Many of us love being near this great city, and working online.  There are so many bloggers and others that are just waiting to attend these sorts of things.

4.  Great conversations!  Everywhere I turned I saw people shaking hands and smiling.  So many of us have only met on Twitter.  It’s nice to see the actual humans that reside behind those avatars.

5.  Good information.  I’ve attended several events like this in much larger venues, such as Blog World Expo, New Media Expo, Search Engine Strategies, and PubCon.  Those are much larger (typically in Vegas) and honestly draw in better speakers.  But the Charlotte WordCamp was fantastic for its size.  Many good points were made that will likely help many in attendance. 

Personally, I think each time an event like this is held, the content will only get better.  I know our SEO Meetups in Charlotte get better every month.  I’m sure Charlotte WordCamp and other events like this will be the same.

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Charlotte Wordcamp is only one week away.  It will be held on Saturday, November 15^th, at the Charlotte Observer.  You can learn more and register at the Charlotte Wordcamp blog.  It’s only $15 so you definitely need to go.

A few weeks ago, I ate lunch with Jason Keath and he asked if I’d be willing to present on the “How to Promote Your Blog” afternoon session.  I was happy to do so and especially happy to be presenting alongside Lisa Hoffman and Wayne Sutton.

Both of them seem to be very strong in working with Social Media, so I think I’m going to take a slightly different slant and talk about how to naturally incorporate Search Engine Optimization while blogging for maximum visibility on Google.

HOWEVER…

About a week or so ago, I realized that I have a bit of a scheduling conflict.  To be more specific, Jason and I are flying out on Sunday to NYC to attend a trade show specific to the industry in which we do all our e-commerce.

We’re looking forward to walking the expo floor to spend time personally with several of the vendors we work with daily.  We’ll also be driving out to Long Island to visit the company we buy all our Glaro Products from.

I’m then heading up to Massachusetts to visit my family and my client that sells trade show booths.

I should be flying back to Charlotte on SATURDAY NIGHT!

That’s the problem.  I’m supposed to be presenting Saturday afternoon!

So on Saturday morning, I’ll be getting to Boston’s Logan Airport super early.  If at all possible, I’ll be catching an early flight so that I can present in Charlotte that afternoon.

I hope I make it.  See you then.

(Follow me on Twitter if you want updates on the trip.)

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One of the hardest parts of building a new website or working with a new client is knowing where to start with link building. 

In our SEO Class, we spend an entire day on linking.  We start with teaching the fundamentals of linking.  We then list where to get them. 

I always recommend starting by looking at your own sites, your colleagues, friends, and family.  Certainly, you must know SOMEONE that owns a website that could link to you.

But what next?

I encourage doing some baseline linking.  These links are not especially powerful, but they are generally a good idea.  They are a good place to start for a new site.

1.  Press Releases

The big player in this market is PRWeb.  They show how to create a press release.  After you create one, submit it to PRWeb.  If you have the money, you really should go with the higher level of submission which will actually distribute your release to Google News, Yahoo News, etc.

2.  Directories

This topic has gone round and round lately.  Paid directories and many others have been discouraged by Google. 

But you can’t really go wrong with submitting to the Yahoo directory (if you have the $299 annually). 

You should also try to submit to Dmoz, even though it may take years to actually get approved.  Submit and forget with that one.

Other directories may be worth it.  Most recently, Best of the Web, Gimpsy, Joe Ant, Skaffe, America’s Best, World Site Index, Site Sift, and a few others are the ones that some of my most trusted colleagues have been recommending.

Fiona wrote more on keeping track of directory submissions on her blog.

3. Articles

Lastly, go ahead and write an on-topic page of text and instead of posting it on your own site, submit it to an article directory. 

The big player here is Ezine Articles.  Go ahead and submit to them (for free).  There are some others, but most are probably not worth your time.  In fact, there is software available that will submit your article to several places at once.  This also is probably not a good idea.

We submit once to Ezine Articles and that’s good enough.

The bottom line

As you may already know, the above techniques are just baseline.  They are not worth much, but you might as well do them.  They don’t take long and will get a new site started.

For more information on the good links, stay tuned.  You can also attend our two-day SEO Training.  Day one is all about on-page factors.  Day two is devoted to link building.

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Almost exactly two months ago, Google lit the blogosphere on fire by releasing an Internet browser.  Personally, I blogged that it was a direct attack on Microsoft and served no other purpose but to get everyone talking about Google.

However, I gave it a shot.  At first I tried to use it exclusively, but it lacks the ability to use add-ons such as themes or plug-ins.

So, I started using Google Chrome as my default browser, but used FireFox when I started really working.  This worked fairly well.  Why?  Because quite often, within twitter and/or e-mails, I would click on a link to a url.  When I did, the web page would initially open in Google Chrome. 

This worked fairly well, because the one true benefit to Google Chrome is that it does load a little quicker.

How much faster?  

There are ways of testing it to the tenth of a second.  But in real life, does that really matter?  No.  My quick testing just now shows that it takes about one second to load Chrome.  It takes about two to load Firefox.

But here’s what happens.  As I continue to use Google Chrome, I inevitably want to use one of my toolbars.  As an SEO, I regularly use Search Status, SEO for FireFox, and Web Developer Toolbox.  These are essential to my business.  (If you are an SEO, you should use them too.)  I also use StumbleUpon and Facebook toolbars.

So sorry Google!  That one second of my life that you saved several times per day just is not worth it.  My browser is a tool.  Not having the FireFox add-ons makes your browser practically worthless to me.

Now that two months has gone by, can we all just agree that Google did this primarily to stick it to Microsoft?  Be honest.  They really didn’t need to make a browser.  They practically own FireFox already.  And Firefox is slowly and steadily taking over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

This is a case of a company just plain having too much money and throwing it anywhere they can just to stick it to their competitors.

Maybe the recession will get Google working back on their core products – search (and organizing the world’s information and putting ads on it).

PS:  A quick informal poll on Twitter just proved that very few are using Chrome any more.  It has been little more than a passing PR stunt so far for Google.

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In our Google AdWords class, we teach how to use Google AdWords to advertise in many places.  The two most common are:

• Search engines using the Search Network
• Other websites using the Content Network

Throughout the entire class, I constantly remind everyone that you should ALWAYS create separate campaigns for each.  Google makes it very easy to “just check this box” to advertise on both search and websites. 

Don’t fall for it!

Advertising on search engines is conceptually entirely different than advertising on a website.  The user is doing something completely different in each of these situations.  Therefore, your reporting, your ad copy, and so many other things need to stay separate if you are to be successful.

In fact, I recommend that you simply start with search at first.  Then, after you have that working well, you can move on to creating new and custom campaigns and ads for the content network.  But please do it separately.

One special benefit to advertising on the content network (other sites) is that you have the option of having text ads or image ads.  Yet, the average person has not been very successful advertising with image ads.  One reason why is that they find it difficult to design them.

So…

Google has created a new tool for those of you that want to advertise on the content network using images. 

It is called the Display Ad Builder.  You can read about it on the official Google AdWords blog, or watch the video shown below.

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