“How do I know if my SEO campaign has been successful?”

I was asked this deceptively simple question the other day. I wasn’t able to give the fullest response but considering the circumstances, I gave it a great effort.

It’s mid-spring in Victoria and the golf courses are playable again so I joined a friend and a few of his acquaintances for a short round on Saturday. By the time we had gotten to the third tee-box, talk had turned to Google and eventually search engine marketing in general. That tends to happen around me for some reason. Read more…

What is Social Networking and how will it affect online marketing in the coming years? That’s a question a number of people have been thinking about since the dawn of the commercial ‘net. In the earliest days, online social networks formed between users of bulletin board services (BBS). People met each other by joining the board with planned, in-person gatherings taking over entire cafes. That was a time so geeky it seems quaint in remembrance. Today’s social networks are enormous, robust and sophisticated. The medium is a lot of things but these days, there’s nothing geeky about it. Read more…

The room was excellent, providing seating for about 50 people per session. The chalkboard and flip charts were fully stocked with fresh chalk, clean brushes and brand-new Sharpie markers. There were three thermoses of organic coffee, which never seemed to empty, no matter how many cups were consumed. The overhead projector and the A/B/C switch (attached to the three laptops used by the presenters) were wired and the movie screen behind the podium automatically raised and lowered at the push of a button. Sizing up the situation at half past seven o’clock in the morning, Bruno, Frank and I smiled, each knowing something interesting was going to happen in just a few short hours. Read more…

Blogs have become a bastion of free speech on the web – where anyone can start their own personal commentary on any topic for free. Businesses use blogs to post their latest news, celebrities make fans salivate as they update their blogs with news about their day, and they even demonstrated the power to keep online vendors in line (Google bombing). The fact is, blogs have become massively popular and it seems the sky is the limit for this online phenomenon. But that is not the end of the story, I wrote this article to tell you how blogs are soon going to influence buyers of your products in the offline world. Read more…

In a few hours I will be boarding a small, single prop sea plane (likely a DeHavilland DHC3 Otter) for a short hop across the Georgia Strait into downtown Vancouver. There, I will be met by Frank Klassen and Bruno Hoffman, co-founders of Vancouver based Search Engine Business World, a conference and planning organization formed to educate Canadian businesses about search engine marketing.

Tomorrow, I will be speaking at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University addressing topics ranging from a brief history of search to the latest tools and trends in search marketing. I am not certain if registration is still available but if you find yourself in Vancouver tomorrow morning and are in the mood for some informative fun, SFU Downtown is the place to be.

While in Vancouver, I have some spare time tonight and tomorrow afternoon. If any StepForth client or reader is interested in having a coffee, please feel free to call our office (1-877-385-5526) or email jimhedger@stepforth.com to arrange a time.

The banner across the top of the site reads, “In a World of Conflict, the Truth Must Survive”. Below the banner, we see a twenty-two year old image of a dead man, minutes before he met his fate. The image, captured by Israeli photographer Alex Levac in 1984, shows a Palestinian hijacker being led away by Israeli Defense Forces. Minutes after the shot was taken, the hijacker was dead. The official story issued by Israeli authorities said the hijacker was already dead when the IDF found him. The story illustrates the importance of war correspondence in an environment where the greatest casualty is almost always the truth. Read more…

Hi folks,

I made a critical error in my piece on Lycos yesterday, one that has left me with the writer’s equivalent to the blue-screen of death, the red-face of embarrasement. Yesterday I noted that Lycos owns Wired Magazine. That is not true. Wired Magazine is a Conde Nast publication.

Lycos owns Wired News.

Sorry about the error.

A report in today’s Financial Times says, “Yahoo has called for broad co-operation among internet, media and communication companies and the US government to counter Chinese censorship on the web.”

The company is calling on the other tech giants, along with the US Government to take a harder, collective stand against Chinese Government censorship of the web. Read more…

The beginning of our era ended almost two weeks ago. The last Western Union telegram was sent on Friday January 27th.

Western Union has a long and storied history. Though the company continues to thrive as a money-transfer service, it was among the first public-access electronic communications providers. Within a decade of its founding it was certainly the largest. As the company grew, it developed and introduced a number of communications technologies, each revolutionary for its time. Read more…

For almost a full year we have been preaching a brand of search engine optimization that quotes heavily from the gospel of Usability. Under our marketing philosophy, sites should be designed and optimized in order to make transit from any given entry point (not necessarily the index page) to the desired goals and expectations of both visitors and site owners, as simple and intuitive as possible. Read more…