It’s never been as important to be ahead of the education curve as it is today. The Karcher Group is committed to doing our part to educate the local community about the web. We’ve just announced the topics for our 2009-2010 Breakfast Bootcamp Series. This completely free series of web training sessions will whip your web marketing skills in shape!
Each of the six in the Breakfast Bootcamp series is held right in our offices in North Canton, Ohio. Our team of web marketing experts will be giving great applicable tips and training in a two-hour intensive class. The sessions for this year will be:
- Blogging & Micro-Blogging (Twitter)
- Effective Web Design
- Web Analytics
- Social Media Strategies for LinkedIn and Facebook
- Email Marketing Techniques
- Online PR
Who would benefit most? Our Breakfast Bootcamps are perfect for business owners, webmasters, marketing and PR professionals, web designers and developers, communications professionals, and ad agencies. The layout of each seminar in the series has been carefully designed to be as flexible as possible, allowing you to attend the series as a whole, or just sign up for one or two sessions covering where you need help the most.
Registration is open - space is limited!
Every year NEOSA puts on the Best of Tech Award and this year I’m
extremely happy to announce that SageRock Digital Marketing Agency won in the category of Best
Use of Social Media. Thank you NEOSA and thank you SageRock!
More and more websites are moving to content management systems to control their site content. Many off-the-shelf content management systems don’t account for crucial SEO techniques to be implemented.
Why a Search Engine-Friendly CMS?
“Dynamic content (the kind of content generated from a CMS) and the search engines have had a long, rocky relationship. That’s because when a typical CMS generates dynamic content, it creates long URLs with variables that the search engines may have difficulty interpreting. In some cases, the search engines flat-out ignore these URLs.”
Some features of a SEO-friendly CMS include:
- Ability to manually optimize Meta-tags, page titles, H1 tags, etc.
- Generate short and clean URLs
- Session ID storing in cookie, not the URL
“If you want control over your site, but also the ability for it do well in the search engines and grow with your business, then do yourself and your business a huge favor: take a pass on the CMS freebies and invest in a flexible, search engine-friendly CMS that will help you to generate long-lasting results.”
Read more about why choosing an SEO-Friendly CMS is important for your website.
Cleveland SMC April 22, 2009 Event
This looks like it will be an interesting event happening in Cleveland. Watch this video to learn more about the Social Media Club here in Cleveland.
Here’s their writeup:
On Wednesday, April 22 join the Social Media Club (http://clevelandsmc.ning.com/) Cleveland for their monthly meeting (http://clevelandsmc.ning.com/events/soc ial-media-club-cleveland) at thunder::techs offices, located at 3635 Perkins Ave., Studio 5 in MidTown Cleveland. The event takes place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and features an opportunity to learn more about social media trends and declare your ideas on social media in a fun video. Hope to see you there!
There’s a really cool event coming to Akron April 17th:
BizCamp - Spring 2009 Speaker Schedule | Office Space Coworking
What is BizCamp?
BizCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.
It’s an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants. Sometimes referred to as an ‘un-conference’ it’s a break from the expensive, ‘pitch’-driven, cattle-herding events that have become all too common in the business world.
Rather - BizCamp is a participatory event.
Attendees help determine what presentations will be given — and even have the opportunity to present themselves. The presentations themselves are intimate affairs - small groups of 20-30 people. The sessions feature an open dialogue of questions, answers and -yes- even the occasional ‘I don’t know.’
If you are free, seriously consider attending. It should be a great event.
Are you going to the The 3rd Annual eMarketing Techniques Conference at Corporate College
It’s on May 8th at Corporate College East. It always proves to be a great conference. If you are into Web marketing this is a great local event.
Also check out their video wall here:
The 3rd Annual eMarketing Techniques Conference Video Wall
It’s a nice overview of the conference with catchy videos from many of the speakers.
I’m sure we’d all agree that the main concern in our area has been the economy. TKG has been so focused on this that we have spent a good portion of our time pushing SEO and SEM techniques, not just to our clients, but to anyone who would listen through our seminars and Breakfast Bootcamp. As SEOs, we all understand just what marketing can do for our clients’ sites. It is vitally important, and can make the difference for a company that is struggling with sales.
That being said, I think it’s time to look to the future again. I, and many others I have spoken to feel that Northeast Ohio has hit bottom economically, and will be rebounding from here. TKG started off our year with the successful launches of several new sites, including an all new design for our own site. Good design and usability go hand in hand with the best SEO practices, and any good SEO should really help the client consider whether their design is SEO friendly, or if perhaps a redesign would best benefit the client, and their site. SEO done prior to launch is an especially cost effective measure. This was discussed here in the past, and I am sure it bears revisiting.
Some of our clients understand at the outset of a project just how vital on page efforts can be, and want to make sure that their site is built with SEO in mind from the onset. PRN Funding is a great example of a client who is very aware of what SEO can do for their site, and made sure that SEO would be part and parcel when they started their initial web design project. Another firm that does a nice job of this is Cleveland SEO member Optiem. They state right in their strategy page that design and development are part of their SEO strategy, just as they should be.
If we lived in a perfect world, all of our clients would understand that a great design needs to go hand in hand with great, focused SEO. That when these are planned and implemented simultaneously, they can not only launch their sites a step ahead, but save on optimization costs, as well as design changes later on. I think that as our economy rebounds, more business owners are going to come to us, wanting to know the fastest ways to get back on track, and get there ahead of everyone else. For some this will mean a new site design, for others, this will mean some analytics and tweeking of their existing site and SEO efforts. I truly think that the longer the internet is a means of doing business, the more savvy site owners will become. It will get easier to get site owners to understand the value of researching and implementing SEO strategies while their sites are in the production phase. Soon, hopefully clients, SEOs and developers will recognize that working together is a best practice for all. Time and budgets will both be well served.
The Karcher Group (TKG) is gearing up for its 7th season of SEO seminars with a new seminar website and new content for the attendees! Registration is open for two upcoming SEO seminars:
Columbus, Ohio - May 1st
Akron, Ohio - May 29th
Join TKG’s SEO team, along with special guests Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends, and Jake Baillie, Managing Director of STN Labs and all-around SEO pro, for a full day of SEO strategies and hands-on workshops designed to GET RESULTS. We make sure our seminars are laid-back, affordable, and best of all, packed with tons of tips you can use right away.
If you want to make sure you’re doing all you can to increase your company’s bottom line in this down economy, join us for SMS Seminar and learn how to make the most of your marketing budget. Through the Search Made Simple series, we’re proud to have helped over 500 people and businesses get on the right SEO track!
What we’ll cover:
- Basics of On-Page Optimization
- Keywords & Copywriting
- HTML Optimization
- Optimizing Dynamic Content
- Link Building
- Social Media
- Local Search
- Mobile Search
- Hot Topics
Cleveland SEO readers can save $50 with the discount code ClevelandSEO. Register now!
If you have a moment, I’d appreciate your help. Please take a look and forward this job on to anyone you think would be interested/qualified in the position, or anyone else who could help me find a great candidate.
Thanks for your help!
-Greg Habermann
COO/VP of SageRock, Inc.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Company: SageRock
Job Title: Web Marketing Specialist — Entry Level
Description: SageRock is hiring a full-time web marketing associate to assist our PPC and SEO specialists in overall web marketing campaigns for clients.
Responsibilities include Paid Search account setup and maintenance, market and industry research, strategy planning, HTML and CSS code modification, ROI management, and more.
Job Responsibilities:
Assist Paid Search Media and SEO specialists with:
- Competition, phrase, market research
- Management of day-to-day client relationships
- Creation and Management of PPC campaigns for current and new clients
- Operating management tools to maintain ROI goals
- Writing / Designing ads and landing pages
- Modifying websites for SEO
- Monitoring, measuring, and reporting metrics to clients
- Developing and managing Social Media promotions
Skills and Experience:
- Self-motivating, quick-learner
- Bachelor’s degree in applicable field
- Certification with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Ambassador program, etc.
- Strong organizational and analytical skills, plus ability to manage simultaneous projects and demanding deadlines
- Proficiency with Excel, HTML, and CSS
Excellent benefits package includes generous vacation; flex time; medical, dental and disability insurance; simple IRA matching. Come work in a collaborative, enriching environment in an exciting, fast-paced industry.
Please send resume and salary requirements to greg@sagerock.com
Polysort/Pilot Fish president Angela Charles will be a featured speaker at the “Business of Plastics” Conference during the International Plastics Showcase at McCormick Place in Chicago, June 22-26.
Angela, a sought-after speaker for business-to-business conferences, will discuss “Strategies for SEO Success.” Angela joined Polysort/Pilot Fish in 1995 after a 10-year career in business journalism, primarily with trade publication Plastics News, where she was assistant managing editor.
Polysort, the operating parent of Akron SEO firm Pilot Fish, launched the first plastics and rubber industry portal site in 1995.
