SEO Blog

We had a ring-side commentator’s view of the Yahoo! situation on Webcology yesterday when we were joined by San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien.

The 30-minute interview covers a lot of ground. The goal was to get a deeper look into the intricacies surrounding this story and there are few better independent sources than experienced journalists. Chris has covered the business side of the Valley for years. He has a detailed understanding of corporate mergers and the forces that compel them. Chris has spent the last six months working to help his readers figure out the twists and turns of Microsoft’s attempted take-over of Yahoo!

We start with a basic background and move quickly into the public and back-room maneuverings that have made this saga one of the most fascinating tech/business stories of all time. To hear the interview, please click on the WebmasterRadio.fm podcast widget below.

Webmaster Radio
	Google Yahoo Ad Deal Inside Story Show: Webcology

Rounding out the hour, we have a live report from the SMX Local and Mobile conference currently underway in San Francisco. Speaker and panel moderator Cindy Krum joined us in what was then the opening hours of the show to discuss the impact of mobile search and connections between mobile and local.

“I don’t want the whole world, I just want your half.” - Ana Ng, They Might be Giants, 1989

Yahoo! might have wriggled free of Microsoft for the time being but it is now getting closer to Google than many PPC experts are comfortable with. Yahoo!’s overt flirtations with Google proved to be the ultimate poison pill that turned away Microsoft’s uninvited attentions.

Most in the search marketing community were rooting for a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!, not because we love Microsoft or dislike Yahoo!, but because we felt that the combined forces of the two mega-firms would provide a truly capable competitor to Google. That didn’t happen. As it stands today, we’ve transited from a potential to create greater competition to the very real potential of seeing far less competition in the lucrative PPC marketplace.

On yesterday’s Webcology show on WebmasterRadio.fm, we explored the Post MicroHoo environment with Search Engine Watch Executive Editor Kevin Heisler and WorldBenefactor.com co-founder Greg Meyers. (Greg also publishes the blog SEMGeek.com).

It was an interesting conversation. Kevin covered the business ends of the equation and Greg passed out several tips on PPC bidding strategies his non-profit WorldBenefactors.com site is adopting in the post MicroHoo world.

Yesterday afternoon, Metamend VP of Marketing, Murray Owen and Reputation Management Specialist, David Howell joined Dave Davies and I on our Webcology show on WebmasterRadio.FM. The topic of the conversation focused on the amazing recovery Metamend made within 48-hours of the fire that destroyed our Canadian head office in Victoria BC.

The show is worth a listen for organizations that have yet to write or implement a disaster management plan. Facing the toughest challenge our 10-year old firm has ever faced, the Metamend team had a well thought-out road map to follow. When the administration put the plan to action early Sunday morning, every one of the staff knew what they had to do and set about doing it.

By Monday morning, we were each working from our home offices with a communications backbone in place and access to our common files reassigned and thus restored. By Tuesday, the team was as close to reclaiming its general working rhythm as possible. Looking back on a Friday morning, it is now possible to see beneficial sides to what could have otherwise been an unmitigated disaster.

Overt the past three months, we have been running a ten part series covering the basic steps in search engine optimization and marketing on our radio show Webcology on WebmasterRadio.fm and WebProNews.com. After twelve weeks (two of which were preempted by conferences), today marks the final episode in the series.

I am very proud of the series and the accomplishment. Our goal was to combine ten 1-hour radio shows with companion articles published in the Expert Article section of WebProNews to flush out the ten major phases of an effective search marketing campaign. To cover such a broad topic, we enlisted the help of some of our friends.

Here are links to each article and radio show in chronological order along with the name of the expert author.

1/ Keyword Research :: Article by Dave Davies :: WebmasterRadio show (Jan. 31, 2008)

2/ Competitor Analysis :: Article by Ross Dunn :: WebmasterRadio Show (Feb. 7, 2008)

3/ Site Structure :: Article by Daryl Quenet :: WebmasterRadio Show (Feb. 14, 2008)

4/ Content Optimization :: Article by Jim Hedger :: WebmasterRadio Show (Feb. 21, 2008)

5/ Link Building :: Article by Debra Mastaler :: WebmasterRadio Show (Mar. 6, 2008)