I'm headed to )hopefully( sunny San Diego today for the annual Online Marketing Summit conference where I'll get to present on one of my favorite topics: Optimization. Of course, if you read Online Marketing Blog very often, you'll know my definition of optimization is a bit different that traditional SEO. My post last Thursday " Are You Optimized ?" touched on this.

Is your company adaptable? Is your marketing optimized? I think most online marketers get the fact that marketing and communications on the web is a fast changing place and that most companies are structured to move at a slower pace than the digital world is evolving. Take for example, the notion of Search Engine Optimization )SEO(. It's been around for about 15 years or so and in just the past few months Google has made the most significant changes ever.

Is Your Blogger Relations Using Push & Pull PR Tactics? Yesterday digital PR maven Adam Vincenzini pinged me about a post he was researching on how brands could make it easier for bloggers to talk about them. It's a great question because mentions and links from influential content sources are priceless for credibility, awareness and in particular, social SEO.

Google+ Optimization or Community Building? Initially I looked at Google+ the same as other Google social projects like Wave and Orkut. But the more I use Google+ the more I like it. Maybe it's the network effect because others are using it more too. I often find content and insights shared on G+ that I don't find elsewhere. While the addition of Google Search Plus Your World )SPYW( has made a big splash in the digital community,

Content Marketing Not Performing? Troubleshoot SEO Basics. This post is a preview of a new downloadable guide I will be offering for those who pre-order Optimiz e by March 13,2012. The full guide will have screenshots, examples and "SEO Deep Dive" advice. If you want the full guide, watch the OptimizeBook.com site or sign up there to be notified.

Online Marketing is all about information. And people. Making connections that solve marketing problems in today's environment of social and technological innovation can be challenging. Like many readers of this blog, a big part of what I do as an Internet Marketer centers around being able to consume large amounts of information or better, the right information,

Being included on a popular list of credible resources like our own BIGLIST of top Marketing Blogs or one of the many other collections of useful resources posted online can feel pretty satisfying, validating the hard work many are putting in to their business blogs. Great lists get socially shared, linked, and emailed, giving those included quite a bit of valuable exposure. By association, the list publisher also gains value in terms of exposure, links,

Screenshot from Google's promo video Google Personalized Search rolled out yesterday revealing a change as significant as Universal Search in 2007. Unlike the major change that brought images, video thumbnails, news and blog posts within search results for all, the Google plus Your World changes are only visibile when logged into Google. There are many stories to be told here, from Google as a social network to the statements Google and Twitter are makin g.

This post is about Congratulations, Convergence and Content. First off, congrats to Aaron Kahlow on his great news , I'm sure UBM TechWeb will be pleased with OMS, it's an impressive event with a great following. Speaking of OMS, despite the wimpiest Minnesota Winter in years, February is a fine time to go somewhere warm and luckily, OMS and SES Search & Social Accelerator in San Diego are coming up fast Feb 6-9, 2012.

The business press is full of stories about how small companies are using social channels to attract and engage customers. But while there are plenty of individual success stories, the confidence in what to do specifically is not always clear for small business owners that are strapped for time and online marketing resources.

A recently post on PC World, "2011: The Year Facebook Killed Google" reflects a common mis-perception about the emerging role of search and social media for consumer information discovery. In the post, the author Dan Tynan shares that he's finding and consuming more information on social networks vs. Google during "moments of leisure". Citing unique visitor traffic and time on site statistics from Nielsen, Dan then makes the argument that Google is falling behind.

What does 2012 hold in store for online marketing? The acceleration of innovation in online technologies and the ways we can discover, consume and engage with information can be a challenge to keep up with. But as digital marketers that are more than shiny object opportunists, seeing future trends is exactly what we need to do in order to anticipate our place in the digital universe. It's not just about where you can sell stuff to people right now, but next month, next year,

In just a few days we'll be celebrating our 8th year of blogging here at Online Marketing Blog. Most of the SEO Blog class of 2003 is still going strong: )SEOBook, Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Journal, etc( Although, we haven't been solely focused on SEO ourselves for several years. Marketing channels may change, but our focus on providing useful information,

I attended University a very long time ago, where I started out pursuing Graphic Design and then transitioned to an interdepartmental degree: Sociology, Industrial Psychology and Business. Art was interesting, but I was only mildly talented and there was no digital program )this was pre-internet(. As I look at the state of the social web today, I am amazed at what a dynamic and interesting time we live in. I wonder what it would be like,

While the topic of return on investment with social media participation seems to polarize many marketing, advertising, and public relations pundits, there are a growing number of companies and agencies that are implementing social media marketing and analysis efforts to answer the question firsthand. We've all read about or seen favorite examples going back to Dell Outlet selling a few million dollars worth of discounted computer equipment through Twitter,

Thousands if not tens of thousands of new companies are formed every month in the U.S. and one of the most common problems to be solved relates to creating awareness, interest and motivation to buy. Is buying Google AdWords, throwing up a blog and a Facebook Fan page the answer? What about sending out Tweets, press releases and investing in SEO? If your start-up is executing content marketing tactics without first hand insight into the market and target customers,

Readers of Online Marketing Blo g know I have a bent for holistic SEO and the role of content marketing across the entire brand and customer relationship ) customer life cycle marketing (. A lot of commentary in the SEO world over the past few years has been about moving levers via site architecture/code/server/crawler/robot/markup/feeds/microformats as well as blocking and tackling with keywords and links.

When most people think of search engine optimization for a company, it's usually as a marketing function. That makes sense since SEO is such a low-cost, high impact and measurable method of attracting new customers and revenue. However, I think looking at SEO and optimizing social media solely as a marketing function is like looking only at the eyeball of your favorite portait. Take a step back and you'll see a bigger, more interesting picture.

A few weeks ago, @aknecht and @SocialMichelleR had me on their #socialchat and as I am prone to do, I ask for questions in advance and try to answer them so when the actual Twitter chat comes, I'm ready with robust content and links instead of thinking of everything on the fly. The result is a richer experience for all I think. It's also a source of content that one can use for a blog post. Like this one According to Hashtracking , that #socialchat was quite active,

A recent study "State of Digital Marketing Report" indicated that for both B2B )57%( and B2C )41%(, search engine optimization was the most effective marketing tactic for lead generation over paid search advertising and social media marketing. Keep in mind, the study was sponsored by a provider of SEO services and had a conservative sample size. Despite that, the findings are consistent with what many successful SEO practitioners have known for years.