Search Engine Marketing Organizations Archives

Matt McGee writes at Search Engine Land that SEMPO has been invited to ring NASDAQ's bell in New York City on December 1st. This is a huge honor for SEMPO and it indicates that the organization has been doing quite well this past year. SEMPO has been asked as a result of a big deal with Microsoft where they are working with Microsoft adCenter.

Of course, everyone is super excited -- this is great news for the search marketing organization.

This is especially true after their early struggles and questions on if SEMPO will survive or not. They proved to show that not only have they survived, but they have been an important part of the search industry.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Link building expert Jim Boykin announced on his blog that he's launched a series of training videos on all things Internet Marketing-related at Internet Marketing Ninjas. The training costs $2995/year and includes videos from Aaron Wall, Andy Beal, Bill Slawski, Christine Churchill, Cameron Olthuis, Jim Boykin, Jim Gilbert, Jeremy Schoemaker, Jill Whalen, Lee Odden, Neil Patel, and Todd Malicoat. It's a stellar team. :)

Bloggers agree. Those who were interviewed acknowledge the work that Jim has put into the program: he's flown around the country to collect these video interviews. Now that's time and dedication.

If you're in doubt of the price tag, Barry has vouched for it.

Forum members agree. Everyone is excited to see the direction that this takes, and I'm no exception.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Karl Ribas spotted a great find the other day: Wal-Mart is now offering Search Engine Marketing services at this sign-up link. The offering seems to be a $100 per month PPC service led by a Redmond Washington SEM agency.

Forum members are having a field days with this finding, even though Barry points out over at Search Engine Land that the service has actually been available since the summer of 2004. Here are some reactions:

WOW, I never thought they would go that low. Now Wal-Mart/Sam's Club wants poor people to pay them for NOTHING when search engines pick your sites up for free? Freaking amazing...

Tim Dineen says:

I love their SEO service: "Establish a local search profile and have your website submitted to the major search engines..."

(Sound familiar?)

Some folks (like Matt McGee) think it's an April Fools joke. It must be given that the company offering has been around for 3.5 years now and nobody has really heard about it.... is it for real?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

If you are in the business of doing SEO, what is an appropriate job title for you? I'm sure many of you have grappled with that question, similar to a member at the HighRankings Forums.

Tough question, really. I've seen people spend a ridiculously long time explaining what they do.

thanks for asking about something I've struggled with. I call myself a SEO consultant, but than I end up having to explain myself to the general population. You call yourself a plumber or a realtor and people know what you do. You say you do SEO or SEM and they get a blank look on their face.

Some people try to say that they work in "Marketing." Others, like administrator Jill Whalen, use a more specific and to-the-point title:

o the general population (like what I tell people I meet at a wedding) I just say that "I help businesses get their websites found in Google."

To businesses, however, I'm pretty much an SEO Consultant or Search Marketer.

Another good one is a business card with the following text:

WEB OPTIMIZATION The art and science of producing targeted website traffic and converting that traffic into sales.

What do you use?

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Does Google really know who buys links? A discussion has evolved around an occurance where someone found evidence of a site that wasn't in the top 50 but after "spending around £10,000 per month (a rough guess) and amassing 200,000 back-links in a couple of weeks" shot up to the number one spot.

And Google hasn't pointed any darts at it yet.

So, some folks are wondering. Are buying links really naughty? Can you stand up and do it in the wide open, flaunt your booty and buy the number one spot?

A New Age Of Seo - Link Buying Taken To The Extreme, Who says you can't buy the Google #1 spot? discussion at Cre8asiteforums rallies the curious.

JupiterResearch is running a survey named the Search Marketing Executive Survey. If you are a search marketer, it would be very helpful to the industry, if you participated in the survey.

Already more than 1,000 marketers, consultants and agencies have responded -- but we'd like to get as broad a cross-section of PPC campaign managers and Search Engine Optimizers as possible. The survey is open to novices, experts and search gurus.

Only one person per company may respond. ALL responses are aggregated. There is no personally identifiable information released. Please feel free to forward the link to other SEM and SEO professionals.

Take the survey by clicking here.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Via High Ranking forum, the SMA-NA has been busy working on a new website for the last four months. According to the thread:

The site has been completely redesigned and allows search engine marketing professionals the opportunity to stay connected by providing industry news, conference information, articles and a searchable member’s directory. The new corporate logo reflects the commitment the SMA-NA has to the development of a professional member organization for people involved in search engine marketing.

Disclaimer: As a member and part of the executive board of SMA-NA, I had the job of helping get this developed.

If you have any comments about the new design, visit High Rankings for discussion.

If you are in the Dallas area, then you may want to know that Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association is hosting an SEO 101 Panel, some nice names of panelist on the list. More information at http://www.dfwsem.org/press-release-08.html.

Search Engine Forum administrator, Bill Hartzer posted a few threads at various forums. Here is the forum roundup:

• Search Engine Forums
• Search Engine Watch Forums
• WebProWorld Forums

SEMPO is running a survey now and asking you to participate in the results. The survey is at http://www3.intellisurvey.com/run/sempo2 and should take about 10 - 20 minutes of your time.

SEMPO is grateful for your help with this important industry research. Search marketing is a fast-growing sector of the online marketing world, but it is a new enough strategy that there exists to date relatively little public research about how big and effective this strategy is. This survey aims to be the most comprehensive study of search marketing yet undertaken.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Congrats to Ben Pfeiffer for be nominated Internet Chair at SMA NA today. President and Chair is Ian McAnerin (well deserved), Secretary Treasurer: Debra Mastaler (well respected) and VP Public and Media Relations: Jeff Nelson.

News came via SEW Blog.

Also, I officially did not renew my SEMPO membership yesterday. But I did not join SMA NA either.

Just got notice that SEMPO elected a new board today.

The thirteen Board of Directors that will serve a one-year term, starting in mid-March, are (in alphabetical order):

Ron Belanger, Carat Interactive
Chris Churchill, Fathom Online
Barbara Coll, Webmama.com
Koichiro Fukasawa, Wasabi Communications
Gordon Hotchkiss, Enquiro
Kevin Lee, Did-it.com
Mauro Lupi, Ad Maiora SpA
Jeffrey Pruitt, iCrossing
John Sanchez, Zunch Communications
Jessie Stricchiola, Alchemist Media
Julienne Thompson, Advertising.com
Dana Todd, SiteLab
David Williams, 360i

See you at SES NYC new SEMPO board.

SMA-UK, EU, NA are all about democracy, they want all to have a say in what decisions are made with the organization. On that note; leading the force behind SMA-NA, Ian McAnerin, posts the suggested membership fees. He asks for your opinion on this fee structure.

Corporate: $1000
Member: $250
Student: $50
Guest: $0 - Paid member of another SMA

Other SMA's have the following structure:
SMA-UK Levels:

Individual (£250)
Corporate (£1000)
Associate (on application) - Ian's note: basically sponsors
Junior (£125) - Ian's note: Students

With a 10% discount to members of SEMPO

SMA-EU Levels:

Corporate member (one vote – promotional benefits) 1500 Euros
Member (one vote) 375 Euros
Junior Member (no vote) 75 Euros
Guest (no vote – member of other SMA) 0

In addition, the SMA-NA Web site is currently in development at http://www.sma-na.org/.

Danny Sullivan is on a mission to do something about link spam (comment, guest book, trackback, forum, and so on). In a recent entry at the SEW Blog, Danny wrote on the topic of Google To Add "Nofollow" Tagging Of Links To Fight Spam? The proposal is to use the following within your links; <a href="http://www.site.com/page.html" rel="nofollow">Visit My Page</a>

By adding rel="nofollow" it would instruct the search engines to not string along any "vote" "weight" "importance factor" to the page it is linking to.

My thoughts are that the same can be done through JavaScript redirect tags. If the search engines can not find the links, then they will not count. This blog ensures that all comments go through a redirect script, but it does not stop the spammers from spamming this blog. So a simple "nofollow" tag might not do much either. In theory, it makes sense.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch.

Barbara Coll welcomed us, well there are not too many of us here. She started with SFO Regions (Search/Find/Obtain) is just starting, search is really early in the stage. She explains that Search marketing, to be taken to the next level requires education of corporations, consumers and channels. SEMPO has educated the media publishers, the press, the members, and the advertisers. SEMPO does it providing a "huge" amount of materials on the site. Recognition for search marketing this year was huge; Google IPO, MSN Investment, Large Agency Adoption, Advertisers expected to spend 39% more on search marketing in 2005. SEMPO Recognition; large membership, worldwide participation, representation at key industry events, elite SEMPO Advisory Board, volunteer activism, partnerships with associations, key sponsorships, key partnerships, relationship with key industry analysts. Future of SEMPO in 2005, expanded influence, SEMPO.org the destination for selling material for search, more interaction between members and sponsors, expanded member communications & Support, and a more mature stable SEMPO.

Rick Bruner and his primary research report. The objectives of the project were; understand the size of the search marketing industry, understand where marketer spending is going, identify key industry trends, and identify key industry issues SEMPO should address. The research methodology included extensive secondary research, conducted detailed interviews with 31 leading industry experts and did a very detailed survey filled out by 288 people. 2/3rds were agencies. 69% were US based, 8% UK. The bottom line is that over 4 billion dollars was the $ amount of spend by advertisers. (this is live at SEMPO's Web site). He broke out the figures by paid placement, paid inclusion, organize and SEM technology. Nacho tells me the data looks a bit skewed, I agree and so does Greg Jarobe who is nodding his head in front of me based on Nacho's statement. Key Research Highlights include brand awareness is advertiser's top objective, ROI is outpacing inflation, SEM is poaching budget, Senior executives consider SEM a high business priority, Advertisers plan to increase their SEM spending 39% and most advertisers plan to manage the majority of their SEM spending in house. Some really good slides were shown next, but I can't type that fast, if your a member, I guess you can get those reports (should be a 122 page report). Key research conclusions include; inventory of keywords is not yet a critical problem, most advertisers are replying on both paid and organic search, and SEO abuse seen as more of a problem then click fraud.

Dana Todd was next up, she is discussing the committee reports. Marketing committee goals; drive industry growth overall, increase market demand for professional SEM services, increase SEMPO membership base. Education Committee Goals; provide support materials for site visitors, and education of general public via web site, press release, research and events. Marketing Committee; 1st phase of ad campaign completed, SEMPO event activity with ad tech, WMW, SES and Kelsey Group, Promotions, and New ad campaign will kick off in Q1. Education Committee; web site gets 4,000 uniques a week, new materials posted weekly, great new research and case studies, and need more business support documents.

Next up was Neg Norton, President of Yellow Pages Association a non profit member based organization and represents a 14 billion dollar industry and a SEMPO Advisory Board Member. He spoke shortly and I have the press release in my email if your interested. There is a free directory in the www.localsearchguide.org Web site.

New management team is coming in, Virtual Inc will be taking over the company. This company manages 15 other non profit organizations. So this company will take over the management of SEMPO. They updated lots of governance documents on the site. Member communication and benefits. Only 55% open the emails they sent. They have member benefits; growing in numbers and subscriptions, tools, events, and papers. Board elections are up, and 5 of the current board members are on the list and she listed other people up for election. 13 open positions, you vote probably in January and by proxy (email). She then thanked those board members who are stepping down.

Mike Grehan asked for his SEMPO calculator, he was denied, sorry Mike. Dan Theis asked who took the survey, we do not know for sure. Mike then asked, "should I tell my customer that they spend for branding?" The results of the report showed that most people show that brand building was the most important thing. Of course, you and I would think that lead generation and sales were the most important areas. But again, the sample collected is not certain.

Laura asked why are the leads on the SEMPO web site so poor. Why should she rejoin at the $2,000 level if these are the types of leads? Barbara said the membership levels need to be redefined and Virtual will do that. You really signed up to contribute, and lead generation is secondary. But as the Web site improves, you can expect more leads for you. Noel adds that promoting SEMPO as a lead generation tool is against the law, for a non profit organization.

Some more SEMPO news for you. Christine Churchill of Key Relevance is an outstanding individual, losing her as a decision maker on the SEMPO Board will be a great lose for the fragile SEM organization. Christine Churchill does clarify that she is not leaving due to political issues that *might* be hovering over the organization, but in order to "place a high priority on my family and friends," as her official public statement declares.

On a personal note; I am sure we all wish you much happiness in the future with your family and friends. May you, your family and friends have a healthy and successful new year.

So yesterday I met Dana Todd for the first time in real life. Of course I heard her speak in person, she is kinda hard to miss with the red hair, but never actually had the time to say hi. Nice person, she showed me her new camera/video phone - in fact, she asked Brett and I to say the first thing that comes to mine when you think search, in the video camera - I said "spam". That was a long tangent that I normally do not get on.

SEMPO announced today, I think it was today, that they will be accepting "Board of Director Nominations". I thought it was an excellent announcement, bringing in new hope, bright future and greater acceptance of the almost crippled organization. So, to find out what other's thought about it, i posted a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums. I guess they can not win.

Good luck to the new board, who ever they might be and I wish the best to the next chair - tough position to fill.

I think, officially, Webmaster Radio launched yesterday. I guess this means that there is competition for SEO Radio, which never hurt the public.

WebmasterRadio.FM is lifting the "veiled curtain" called the Internet to bring the business community together through an interactive, Internet based radio network. WebmasterRadio.FM offers an all-star line up of radio shows hosted by the most respected names in the Internet business world. Here on WebmasterRadio.FM listeners can find programming with a vast appeal to anyone looking to be a part of a community destination and learn industry specific information from the most successful marketers and technology experts in the world. The LOUNGE (formally the chat room) is open 24/7 allowing listeners to communicate with each other, from around the globe in real time.

Our new show line up includes:

- Next Stuff Now hosted by Chris Tolles, VP of Topix.net
- Domain Master with Monte Cahn of Moniker.com
- RainMaker hosted by SEGuru (Daron Babin) and Brandy Shapiro-Babin
- SEO RockStars with hosts: Todd (Oilman) Friesen and Jake (bakedjake) Baille
- Hats Off with Jessie Stricchiola, President of Alchemist Media Inc.
- Cover Story with Brandy Shapiro-Babin and David McInnis, President PR Web
- Affiliate Marketing Today with Haiko de Poel, Jr. President AbestWeb.com
- Wizards of Web hosted by Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now, Inc.

A London-based group of search engine marketing professionals has formed Search Marketing Association UK (SMA-UK), a trade association to promote the SEM industry in the UK and other parts of Europe. The group formed as an alternative to the U.S.-based Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO).

The quote above is from a Clickz article named UK Search Marketers Form SEMPO Alternative.

Some of the current members include:

• Barry Lloyd
  
• Andy Atkins-Kruger
  
• Paddy Bolger
  
• Richard Gregory
  
• Edward Cowell
  
• Colin Irwin
  
• Simon Collingridge
  
• Jason Cartwright
  
• Ammon Johns
  
• Mike Grehan

The new organization can be found online at http://www.sma-uk.org/.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch and Chris Sherman mentions it at the SEW Blog.

Please expect a lot of chatter over at SEW forums at the thread I started named SEMPO Launches Members Only Forum. This is what I wrote:

No official announcement yet, but I logged into my SEMPO account and found a link to the SEMPO Members Only Forum. They are using the same forum type as Jill's High Rankings Forum, I just love those smilies.

Anyway, its nice how it logs you in automatically from the SEMPO member site. Good work. Nothing really in the forums yet. Not sure what more I can say, because I know nothing else at the present time.

A press released was announced today from SEMPO that they have elected three new board members. "The new SEMPO Advisory Board members are Chris LaSala, the Search Engine Marketing Channel Manager at Google; Neg Norton, the President of the Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association, and Safa Rashtchy; a managing director of Piper Jaffray and well known industry analyst." In the press release it discusses Danny Sullivan's and Chris Sherman's resignation from sempo and then goes into more detail on the new board members.

SEMPO has made from some widespread discussion in many of the forums. Many of the posts I covered here in the past. One such thread I did not mention as of yet is a thread named SEMPO Gone To The Dogs? over at SEW forums. This thread was instrumental in the creation of a mock SEMPO site named SEMPO TAHOE. The forum members are having a blast with this new site. I then started a thread named Will SEMPO Survive? with a poll that asks the question (not to SEMPO members but to individuals in this industry) "How Long Will SEMPO Survive?". So far over 50% voted SEMPO Will Close within a Year, 17% said SEMPO Will Close within 3 Years and an other 17% said SEMPO Will Close within 90 days, only 11% so far said SEMPO Will Survive Forever.

This entry comes of way of an entry by Danny at the SEW blog named SEMPO Gets New Advisors & Parody Site.

I promised you more was to come after I wrote the entry here named Danny Sullivan & Chris Sherman Resign from SEMPO, and it came in the way of more posts over at HighRankings. In a thread started by Jill from HighRankings named Discuss Sempo's Sept. Newsletter, where she posts a thread discussing the latest SEMPO newsletter sent out this September (or yesterday). In the thread you will find more negative posts about SEMPO. You will find well reasoned complaints about SEMPO. You will find more unhappy SEMPO members.

Can SEMPO Win? They try to communicate and then get blasted for what is found in the communication. The thread at HighRankings talks mostly about the UK committee member who was elected. In addition, Mike Grehan points out that some of the committee members, do not even know they were committee members. I can relate to that. Early on, I offered my assistance, but I received no response. Only later did I find out that was was listed on the committee Web site as part of the education committee. I was not notified by someone at SEMPO, I found out by way of looking at my Web statistics. I found people clicking from the committee's page to my corporate site. I thought it was an oversight, maybe they told me and I forgot, or maybe they emailed me and it was caught by my spam filters. Now I am not too sure.

I still want the best for SEMPO and the SEM Industry. Don't get me wrong. :)

Yesterday, Danny Sullivan released a fairly detailed article named Reflections On SEMPO. The article eloquently summarizes the challenges presented to the organization over the past year. I am not going to summarize Danny's article, if you have time and your looking for an outstanding recap of what took place, please click on the link to his article above.

The article ended with the subtitle "Departing The Advisory Board". Where Danny announces that Chris Sherman and himself will be stepping down from the SEMPO Advisory Board. I personally believe that this is a good thing for Danny, Chris and the Search Engine Watch readership. This is however a major blow to SEMPO's credibility, which is mentioned at the Search Engine Watch thread named Danny Sullivan leaves SEMPO started by Mike Grehan, who was instrumental in pointing out SEMPOs problematic areas.

The article is being talked about all over the Internet. Here are some blogs that are 'blogging' on the topic; John Battelle, Andy Beal, Kim Krause, and others. The forums are also buzzing with chatter on this topic, including Search Engine Watch, Cre8asite, WebmasterWorld, JimWorld, I am sure you can expect some posts over at HighRankings, IHelpYou and others shortly.

My thoughts? I totally understand why Danny and Chris needed to leave. I also feel that people might take this the wrong way. I am sure both Danny and Chris want the best for SEMPO but being in their position, they could not stay onboard in an "official capacity". Will SEMPO succeed and live on? Seems highly unlikely now. This does sadden me, I feel there was a lot of potential for an organization like SEMPO in the SEM community. In addition, the failure of SEMPO does not look to good for the industry and will add to the reputation problem in the SEM industry. Danny and Chris being such a large part of the SEM industry would not want to see the the SEM reputation get even worse then it is.

I am sure there will be a few more entries from me in the coming days on this topic.

As noted several times on this site, most recently here, SEMPO has been under the gun by many high profile members and industry representatives. In response to the long and (IMO) exhausting threads at the various forums, it was suggested that a forum open a pre-moderated thread to discuss the issues with SEMPO. How does this help? Well, it gives SEMPO the ability to quickly review the main concerns without all the chatter in the regular forums.

Jill from HighRankings has opened not just a thread but a forum dedicated to, as Jill puts it, "SEMPO Questions and (hopefully) Answers". The forum has a long description which states, and I quote:

This is a moderated forum with the purpose of communicating with SEMPO board members. Increased communication with SEMPO members is on SEMPO's agenda, and we at HighRankings support that mission. This forum is moderated, meaning that all posts will have to "pass the muster" before being posted to the public. We hope that SEMPO board members will appreciate our efforts to make communication to the members just a little bit faster and easier, and we hope that one or more SEMPO representatives will take some time to answer the questions being put forth to them.

The first post in this forum is named Questions About Sempo Aug. 18th Newsletter, where Jill asks a list of questions, she hopes will be answered. Time will tell.

The past month or so has been filled with controversy not from outside of the SEM industry, but rather within. SEMPO has been the talk of the forums. You can see from my first entry on the SEMPO scandal, and from responses in the forums, my sempo meeting coverage and mike's follow up that things were hot.

On the top of that list was member communication. Wednesday night, SEMPO sent out their first actionable member communication memo. It outlined the actions they have taken and will be taking to overhaul the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. However, some SEMPO members are not yet satisfied. Jill Whalen posts at the Search Engine Watch Forums saying "was kinda like the boring meeting, only shorter." I personally feel that this was a huge step, but enough about my personal feelings. Over at HighRankings, Greg Jarboe, the PR volunteer for SEMPO, posts a response to Jill's comments.

Mike Grehan released an article today he named Who needs SEMPO? - Part deux!, in follow up with his last article. I wrote on the first article and named it SEMPO Scandal - Mike Grehan Gives a Thumbs Down. The thread at Search Engine Watch named Mike Grehan Stirs Up SEMPO Controversy is currently the thread leader in the top rated list. Since then several new threads have been created, to make it easier to follow. In addition, many other forums are covering this topic.

For a list of SEW threads on the SEMPO topic, please visit the Search Industry Growth & Trends forum.

A very detailed oriented thread is going on at Cre8asite Forums named After SEMPO: Should we Start a Trade Association?. With over a 146 replies so far, this can be the real thing. So join the discussion and have a say. If all the issues and goals are detailed in this thread, maybe it will work.

Who knows. :)

In light of recent publicity and events surrounding SEMPO, an outpouring of concerns hit many of the top Search Engine Marketing forums, including IHelpYou, HighRankings, Cre8asiteForums, and SearchEngineWatch. Beneath the dissatisfaction or allegiance towards the still-developing SEMPO, crept in some thoughtful posts, led by Bill Slawski, an Administrator at Cre8asite.

His research and detailed insights into how organizations are run, aided by other forum posters who picked up the on the positive vibe, helped launched a new thread. In it, people are asking questions, making clear statements on their needs, and requesting a “Show of hands” for support for what could be a new phase of growth or recognition for the SEO/SEM industry.

The most exciting aspect is the idea that everyone be represented.

In After SEMPO: Should We Start a Trade Association? Bill asks,

     "What are the things that you would look for in an organization that actually represented the industry?

     What would its purpose be?

     How would people communicate with each other? Is it something that could be done, not in a conference room during SES seminars, but on the web?"

The forum thread opened discussions including whether an organization should set standards and provide rates that anyone could afford, including students learning the trade.

Bill also wrote:

     “I don't think we should go quite go so far as to lay out the groundwork for a new organization. Exploring all of the options is a good starting point. Any group that might be created would definitely benefit from a clear statement of purpose, and a clear understanding of who the members should be.

Let's get a sense of what that clear statement of purpose might be.”

Continue reading "Back To The Drawing Board?"

First, they checked everyone who walked in to make sure they are a SEMPO member - this was not done at the Chicago meeting. They locked and closed the doors right when they started. The room is packed, a lot more members since the last meeting I attended in Chicago in December 2003.

Dana Todd said we are going to be very formal but hold all questions until the end. Lots of tension in the air. She introduced Barbara Coll as our fearless leader. Coll started off stating that she has looked back and SEMPO accomplishments and she is proud of what is done.

- Formed a 501c(6)
- 249 members
- 9 press releases (half a million impressions from this)
- numerous mentions online and offline
- sempo site referenced often as a resource.

She says UK is the second largest member base. She talks about how to improve international awareness. Raise awareness of SEM is a goal of year two. They launched an advertising campaign today which they will go into later. Lobbying for SEM panels at advertising and marketing conferences to get SEMPO mentioned (example AdTech had one SEM panel and next time they will have 5 panels). Press campaigns. The new SEMPO tag line is "Top of Search = Top of Mind." SEMPO has 50+ volunteers, 9 subcommittees (they want someone in the UK, they need someone to stand up and do it), interim executive director role established, new committees and new chairs and they still need more resources. They promised to clean up their act in member communications. They said it was an oversight and they apologize. In March they looked at the budget and saw they can afford an executive director. She said that in March they decided to hire an interim executive director. The board offered to pay Barbara for 2 hours per day ($300/hour) because she was really spending 5 hours per day. They are going to bring someone new in but she is just temporary. They are going to ask us who we want to have as our board. She said, "there was no reason for not telling you (sempo members), they were sloppy." Barbara doesn't want to be in this role, they want someone with experience with non-profits to run it. But they can not afford a $350,000 salary but they will do their best.

They raised $266,830 to date. Members bring in 77% of the income and sponsors only bring in 23%. They admit they are not good at creating value for their members.

Year One Accomplishments:
- They established themselves
- Research started
- Marketing plan and campaign outlines
- Formal budget for 04-05
- Press and visibility worldwide
- SEMPO public site
- Member site with job listings, RFP postings and restricted content
- Discounts on tools, research and conferences.

Year Two Goals:
- Better membership communications
- Executive Director hire no later then December 04
- Public elections
- Staggered replacement/election for BOD in 2005
- Offline ads
- Heavy press activities
- Defining Best Business Practices
- Increase membership by 100%
- Increase sponsorship by 200%

That covers Barbara's speech, she introduces Dan Boberg from Overture.

Dan Boberg from Overture: He discussed overture's network and product suite. They support SEM (were the first to support SEMs) and they support SEMPO. Overture has an "Ambassador Program", and about ten of the reps stood up to show they are here. He introduced them all and told us how to work with them for more info.

Darrin Rayner from Verizon SuperPages was next up, they are a new SEMPO sponsor. I personally don't have a good history with Verizon SuperPages or AOL Yellow Pages, they just did not perform for me. But that doesn't mean it won't perform for you. They joined SEMPO to get feedback from us and they know they are far from where they need to be to make it worthwhile for SEMs. They want to develop a communication with us to build a better product. Verizon says they power local search (i.e. MSN local). In March 2004 they launched a new site with natural search, category taxonomy and more. They clapped him off the stage because we all want to hear from SEMPO more, not Verizon.

Dana Todd now is discussing the marketing committee. They created a creative platform and marketing strategy. They defined their target audience as marketing decision makers and budget controllers. They built a new tag line. The 2004 budget for marketing is $110,000. They advertising flight schedule is Aug. 1 - Sept. 30 for first wave tests and Sept. 1 - Nove. 15 for second wave ads. the venues are AdWeek/Brandweek/MediaWeek, ClickZ Network, CoolNews, Other considerations such as fortune and others. They showed us their banner ads for AdWeek and other areas. They developed quite a few creatives, all from volunteers. They need (1) more money, (2) print ads, direct mail, (3) need more volunteers, (4) need new content for site, (5) make banners for members to put on their site, (6) members to do "booth duty", and (7) an international campaign "desired" in 2005.

Research Committee discussion from Rick Bruner (Executive Summary Consulting). We pay this guy to do our research, he does research for Amex, Gillette, MSN, etc. Key research objectives include size the search marketing section, distribution of industry spending, key industry trends, and key industry issues SEMPO should address.

SEMPO Japan, they call him 'K' (Koichiro Fukasawa) from Wasabi communications. He is launching the SEMPO Japan committee. She discussed the size of the Japan market (in 2004 $300 million so far and growing). Internet popularity is growing as well. Japan needs SEMPO because they are lacking information. http://www.sempo.jp/ to be launched the 19th of this month.

Barbara is going to complete the session with a finance discussion. Financials will posted through March 30, 04 on the Web site. Budget Q3 and Q4 will be broken out mostly to infrastructure and marketing. Three board members will be elected by members and we will be emailed next week. They want people to step up and elect themselves.

Q & A Now managed by Noel:

Q: What are members getting in return from the membership fees?
A: Noel responded saying that if your asking what is in it for me, then your missing the point of SEMPO. What you put into SEMPO is what you get. Dana Todd said that you are posting in forums but tell us what you want. Coll asked how many of you feel we did something, she asked for applause and she got them.

Q: Is SEMPO thinking about "collaborative marketing"?
A: It seemed to me that the panel were surprised, they said "they loved it". They now welcome it.

Some more statements were made to support sempo but nothing too interesting to note on.

Q: Barry Lloyd was given the mic. Does SEMPO have a constitution or by-laws? Do the members have a say in that?
A: SEMPO does have by-laws that were signed off in March. They couldn't afford an attorney so they are not so professional. They want to improve them.

Barbara is going to close the meeting. She said she admits she was nervous. Give us feedback she says, it will make for a better organization.

Forum news on this topic: I have closed the old thread (the most replied to thread at SEW so far) and started a new thread named SEMPO Meeting at SES San Jose 2004 where this discussion will be continued.

Bruce Clay recently announced in the forum thread named An SEM Code of Conduct? that he has released a new service found at http://www.seotoolset.com/. The tag line on the Web site's homepage reads "We provide comprehensive, easy to learn and use, Search Engine Optimization tools, training, and certification to help you succeed." As part of that Web site, Bruce Clay also has a page named SEOToolSetTM Code of Conduct, where he sets his standards and hopes other SEOs follow them.

Forum discussion is a bit heated as one would imagine, check it out here.

The SEMPO people have asked Danny to post a response to the scandal started by Mike Grehan. I'll just quote from the post and follow up more when I attend the SEMPO meeting this Monday night.

Barbara's stipend was approved on May 15 and she began drawing it on that date. She began taking it because she also assumed a second hat, that of acting executive director, in addition to her role as president.

I'm told that this was going to be announced at the meeting Monday even before Mike's article raised the issue. In addition, I'm told these are other points that were planned to be discussed, of items that have been in the works already:

* A search for an experienced executive director is to begin with the goal of having them onboard by December 2004. Barbara will then step down as president and acting executive director and just be chair of the board.

* There were already plans to have the membership nominate and elect a board member by December 2004 - this will be done faster if the board can determine a way to do this.

* The entire board is up for renewal in March 2005 - at that point, the plan is to stagger elections of new board members.

* Financials for the SEMPO year end were posted on the member-only website in April.

* Minutes of all board meetings are available to anyone who asks and SEMPO's seeking a way to put them online in the members area.

New items that were not already on the agenda that have been added in the wake of the article and various forum discussions will include:

* budget spend to date
* income
* future budgets
* accomplishments
* admission of shortcomings with member communication and steps being taken to correct this
* update on a current research project
* update on an upcoming SEM advertising campaign

That's what I've got. I'm sure people have follow up questions. If so, I'd say the most constructive thing is to list what else you'd like to hear, know or have expanded at the meeting Monday night.

This topic has really started some interesting chatter around the industry. It can only make us wonder what the people over at SEMPO are talking about. My personal feeling is that SEMPO needs someone to step in that has experience in running a professional non-profit organization. If they can find someone good, its worth $78,000+ to get the person on board. Maybe its best if SEOs and SEMs are not the people trying to make this organization have an impact, maybe its best coming from an outsider who understands the importance of the SEM industry but yet doesn't have much of a stake. Obviously, the individual will need to be fueled with goals, such as taking SEMPO to the next level. The next level?

Here are some very interesting threads at the forums on this topic:
- Cre8asite Forums
- Search Engine Watch Forums
- HighRankings Forum
- WebmasterWorld
- IHelpYou Forums

Mike Grehan, one of the most respected figures in the industry, released an article today named Who needs SEMPO?. I found this by way of Andy Beal's blog, where Andy does an excellent job of summarizing the article. I'll pull out some quotes and then bring in forum posts by Barbara Coll (founder of SEMPO), to show how things just don't click.

Mike's article: "SEMPO has approved a $1,500 per week stipend to Ms Coll. This amounts to a salary of $78,000, to fund a part time effort from someone who already has a full time job running a SEM business."
Barbara's Cre8asite post: "The Board of Directors have received no financial compensation for their volunteer position on the board of SEMPO."

Mike's article: "There appears at this stage to be no appointment of a board member for the UK. This, despite the fact that the UK is the second largest market outside the US."
Barbara's Cre8asite post: "and we don't official launch SEMPO in UK/Europe until June!"

Interesting post in light of this article.

The 8 of us that are the current Board of Directors started SEMPO. It was formed from a group of people who attended Danny's Roundtable discussions at SES. We had been talking about forming an organization like SEMPO for over two years and finally I stepped up to lead the crowd. From the group of people who signed up to get involved in forming the organization, a few emerged as people who were willing to put some effort, time and money into it to get things started. That group became the Board of Directors.

We have by-laws that spell out the term of a Director and how they are to be replaced and/or elected. We will be opening a new Board member position up for members to nominate and then vote in. This will happen in 2004. Another Board member will be added from UK/Europe by London SES in June. This person will be appointed by the current Board based on their ability to mobilize volunteers to carry out the SEMPO mission in Europe.

The by-laws will be available to all members by the end of April (the SEMPO, Inc. year end) but will not be posted electronically. Not sure yet how we will handle requests for seeing the by-laws but we will figure it out by April 30, 2004.

Current forum coverage at Search Engine Watch.

I'll warn you, it is a long post, but its worth reading every word. The post can be found in post #23 in a thread named An SEM Code Of Conduct? where the industry discusses forming a new code of conduct to comply with. Bruce Clay was one of the first to come out with a "personal" SEO Code of Ethics which was published a long time ago on his Web site. Now its time to move forward, please take the time to read the whole post here, I will quote a few passages from the post below.

The web is emerging from the "wild west" stage into a period of accountability, and with that comes the dissenting vocal minority that want to argue against change.

We need action by a group that has contributors and supporters not afraid of loud dissenters. Many people see the need for change, yet many leaders are hesitant to incur the potential wrath of the underworld.

The basic theme of my personal Code of Conduct is to avoid deceptive practices at all costs.

The topic of the past two weeks has been how to improve this industry's bar reputation. I have five different entries here covering subsets of this topic, they include:

• Is SEO a "Black Art"?
  
• Danny Sullivan's Response to Seth Godin
  
• The SEM Industry is Getting a Bad Rap
  
• SEO is Fake According to Google
  
• Spam Checking Tool

Jill Whalen last night came out with her High Rankings Advisor newsletter named "The Art of SEO - Issue No. 105" (will be available shortly here.) In this newsletter, Jill sums up her feelings on what needs to be done. Basically she says the SEOs must live up to a higher standard. Letting the customer know their are risks involved to achieve high rankings for a competitive keyword phrase is not acceptable. SEOs, professional SEOs, must achieve high rankings through the upmost ethical manner. Jill is proposing a set up standards that if accepted will form a group of SEOs, that I will call, SEO Angels.

I personally commend her passion for the industry and her efforts to improve the industry's reputation. Is this the solution? Discuss this at the SEW Forums.

The winner of the nigritude ultramarine contest is http://forums.merkey.net/. The announcement was made at the SearchGuild Forums.

Congrats!

I am not making this up!

The last time I checked, there were three (3) Adwords listings on the "nigritude ultramarine" SERP:

• One peddling home mortgages
  
• One with some jibba-jabba about Hilltop and a form allowing you to burn another email address on the "trust me we don't need a privacy policy" plan.
  
• One doorway page generator, no doubt guaranteed to give you #1 rankings for every keyword on every search engine instantly, then somehow give the same result to the next chump who buys it.
  

Still, since the contest will still be going on when our new site launches 6/1, it's awfully tempting to toss a few more nickels on the branding fire.

From one of the nigritude ultramarine threads at High Rankings:
Nigritude Ultramarine is Google's secret plan to find all the amateur SEOs in the world so they can apply "double secret probation Adwords over-optimization Hilltop Sandbox bad-dog-no-bone" penalties.

Seriously, though, I think it's safe to assume that search engines will study this competition. Why wouldn't they - every pathetic spam technique imaginable is in evidence here.

It's amazing - incompetent Black Hats are revealing their ultra-expensive link farms just to win an iPod... and so far, "quality links" are holding their own anyway. Watch out for that double-secret probation, guys.

White Hats, don't forget to stop by and get your free nigritude ultramarine links from my Webmaster Resources Directory. Submissions will only be accepted if I can't find your link farm.

Folding together search engine optimization, web site marketing and user centered design has been my mantra for the past few years. Many top SEO's in the industry have heard the drum beat and brought usability into their services, or opened up their blogs and newsletters to include usability oriented themes and news.

This Blog is one of the wise ones!

Now, Kalena Jordan and her company, WebRank Ltd, have launched an Online Search Engine College. In addition to the many SEO courses offered, content copywriting and usability will be featured courses as well.

Press Release Quote:

     "Search Engine College courses are aimed at a wide target audience, including marketing executives responsible for promoting their company's web site via search engines, small business owners wanting to learn how to market their own web sites via search engines and students or unemployed persons wanting to learn how to optimize web sites for search engines in preparation for starting their own search engine optimization business or applying for a job in the lucrative search engine marketing industry."

Continue reading "Online Search Engine College, And then Some"

Garrett from WebProNews has become the new face behind reporting on Search Engine related news in our industry. He frequently throws plugs to this site and many of my colleagues sites and blogs. Time for a link back.

If you want to know what Garrett really looks like. He went on an eating binge last night and gained a few pounds.

Just kidding, Garrett wishes he looked like that. :) He really looks like this:

Thanks Garrett and WebProNews for such fine coverage.

There is a new contest taking place for SEOs where one can win an iPod. The contest is named SEO Challenge and the goal it to rank #1 for the term that will be announced on the 7th of May at 9am GMT. Who is the best SEO out there, soon we will all know (excluding those who don't want to bother).

I think this is a great idea and excellent PR stunt; PageRank and Public Relations.

Credit to a thread over at SEO Chat by a long time member, thewatcher.

From the SEMPO homepage:

SEMPO today issued two new press releases announcing the availability of new search engine briefings from two leading research firms.

CEO of eMarketer Presents Latest Search Engine Research to SEMPO

Jupiter Analyst Discusses Search Engine Industry with SEMPO

I reported this thread earlier but today the thread got real interesting. Skip to page 3. Ammon Johns said midway through the page "we've yet to see a single representative or even member of SEMPO answer any of those questions." I decided to throw Dana Todd an email to ask someone at SEMPO to join in. Dana got Barbara Coll, Webmama, to stop by.

I think the thread is worth a second look. Check the So What Does SEMPO Mean To You? thread out today. (sounds like an ad :) )

Several Search Engine Professional Organizations have started to become mainstream in the SEM/SEO industry. There are many individuals who are still skeptical of these organizations. I however am not.

SEMPO is one of the first full supported SEM organizations today. They have a large member base and some major supporters. I covered SEMPO's First Official Meeting in this blog this past December. I am a proud member of SEMPO.

SEO Consultants is an other organization that provides one of the most exclusive but free directories of SEM/SEO firms. They have strict guidelines to enter, some say too strict, but nevertheless they are a organization in our industry. I am also a proud member of SEO Consultants.

SEOPros is an other organization that caught my attention. As opposed to SEMPO that is more focused on awareness, SEOPros provides certification and training. They offer many of the services SEO Consultants provides but adds to it the certification, training and objective views. Check out their certification section at http://www.seopros.org/org/certification.htm.

If you do not know about SEMPO, The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization is all about education and awareness to influence increased budgets towards the SEM industry. “SEMPO is a non-profit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of Search Engine Marketing worldwide.” If you were wondering, these guys are for real. I recommend that anyone who is in the SEM/SEO field either in your own firm or in a division in a large organization to join as some level member.

For the details with the meeting read on.

Continue reading "SEMPO – First Official Membership Meeting"