Paul's Web Space 2.1

SEO Resources, Events, Consultants, Blogs, Etc.

At edweek.org, we're fixin' to crank up our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts, a roughly biennial effort, but always worthwhile, because best practices are always improving, and the search engines we're targeting also continually tweak their algorithms to prevent gaming and other distortions.

There are many blogs and other information resources available, often totally free (sometimes with a pay "premium" level of service as well). Anybody who understands the basics behind search engines, as well as concepts such as information architecture, taxonomy, and maybe a little semantic web, can get a good head start simply by consulting free resources and applying a handful of best practices to their site. One principle to keep in mind, though, is that applying SEO to a web site should not distort the presentation of information to make it less understandable by humans in the service of search engines — rather, you should only make changes that enable readers to understand and find information more easily as well.

A. Information Resources — the best news, tools, and information services, some free, some paid, and sometimes with consulting services also offered:

1. In 1996, Danny Sullivan founded the granddaddy of information services that track search engines, SearchEngineWatch.com. He sold it in 1997, but remained associated with it and the related conference series Search Engine Strategies, until 2006, through a couple more mergers and sales that left him with less of a stake in its success. It is still a major resource in the space, along with the affiliated interactive marketing service ClickZ.

2. Danny Sullivan has since started a new company, Third Door Media, which I believe has quickly become the premier resource, and certainly contains the most vibrant communities, in this space.

• First there is the blog and information service Search Engine Land.
• Then there is the growing series of SMX — Search Marketing Expo conferences.
• It offers Search Marketing Now, a series of free webcasts and webinars.
• And finally it operates Sphinn.com, a social news/discussion site for search engine marketers.

3. SEOmoz.org, founded by Rand Fishkin in 1994, provides many free and paid services. They have a daily blog and member blog; and publish more detailed articles (both free and paid/PRO), and provide an extensive set tools for free. Their PRO Membership includes more tools and more features in free tools, a dashboard, premium guides and paid articles. They also provide high-end consulting services.

4. Search Engine Roundtable is a group blog featuring forum leaders from many leading SEM forums around the web, a search engine that searches these selected forums in the aggregate, as well as its own Search Engine Roundtable Forums where anyone can contribute. The primary editors are Barry Schwartz and Tamar Weinberg of RustyBrick, a web design and SEO consultancy based in NYC. Their blog posts are very informative, but the forums covered seem slightly dated (Danny Sullivan is still listed with SearchEngineWatch, and his newer Sphinn forums are nowhere to be found.)

5. Check out this list of seven SEO News Aggregators from TopRank Online Marketing, who also maintain the much larger BIGLIST of SEM and SEO blogs

6. Then there's the mostly-paid SearchEngineNews.com service from Planet Ocean. The few select articles available for free are presented mostly to pitch the paid subscription service; I don't know what's behind the paid curtain, but other people at edweek.org have obtained useful information from this service.

B. Consulting Firms — firms that provide consulting, perhaps conferences, and some free information mostly to support their services business:

1. BusinessOnLine specializes in SEO, usability, and web strategy. Managing Partner Aaron Kahlow also chairs the Online Marketing Summit — I've seen him speak several times, and worked with him on social networks devoted to online marketing. I also attended a class on SEO taught by Ray "Catfish" Comstock, their Search Engine Optimization Manager — his fascinating lecture at a VisualSciences conference drove many of the changes we have made over the past couple years, giving us a great start that we're now looking to build upon.

2. Enquiro, founded by Gord Hotchikiss, specializes in B2B SEM/SEO, as well as testing/usability. They are located in British Columbia, and are said to be remarkably smart, easy to work with, passionate, and reasonably priced; they also publish articles, blogs, and case studies.

3. I've also seen Gary Angel, President and CTO of SEMPhonic, speak at a VisualSciences conference, and was suitably impressed. SEMPhonic offers various services related to Web analytics and SEM, and publish articles and blogs demonstrating their expertise, and describing their methodology known as Functionalism. They also sell a product to automate SEM tracking, and host conferences on analytics.

As with lists like this that attempt to be comprehensive, I will likely update this post from time to time; I will either repost it, or post an update notice with a link. I hope you find this helpful.

Labels: edweek, marketing, seo

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