Building world-class Search Engine Optimization expertise

A new blog to promote its online marketing expertise has been launched by IdeaStar Inc., a Cleveland area full-service Web development company.

The blog, spinfield.com, has two purposes. One is to educate and entertain clients, potential clients and others in the marketplace. The other purpose is to demonstrate how a good blog is run.

“We have compelling content and interesting perspectives on the latest trends in online marketing,” Jim Fisher, IdeaStar president, said. “It’s a good opportunity to engage in a conversation with the marketplace.”

Plenty of hardcore programming involving RSS feeds and interconnectivity to the global blogosphere are included in the site. “The views we present on the Spinfield blog will immediately become part of the global conversation on those subjects,” Jim said. Content is provided by 14 members of IdeaStar. The goal is to post at least two articles, podcasts, or vidcasts per day.

So take a look. Leave comments. Subscribe to the blog. We hope you’ll find something interesting.

After 10 years of flourishing as a web development and marketing firm, we’ve done something seemingly irrational to the majority of our employees and the community at large.  No, we’re not closing our doors.  It’s even more drastic: we’re changing our web address to a three letter domain, www.tkg.com.

Despite working faithfully over the last decade to build our brand, reputation and search engine rankings through our domain, we decided to make the switch because of the simplicity, ease of recognition, and increased branding possibilities of a three letter domain.  Plus, the new domain will eliminate the countless misspellings of the name Karcher.

“We’re thinking of it as a 10^th anniversary present to ourselves,” said Geoff Karcher, TKG president. “We’ve been watching this domain for a long time, and when the opportunity to obtain it came along, it was just too good to pass up, despite the short-term challenges it presents for our search engine optimization team.”

Geoff’s referring to the fact that, by switching to a new domain, we have to rebuild most of our coveted rankings in Google and other search engines.  “This is a major undertaking that will put our skills to the test to maintain all we have established in the last decade, but we can handle it,” he added.

In typical TKG style, however, we’re planning to make this as fun and educational as possible.  Over the next few months, we’ll be documenting the impact of the domain change on a new blog located at www.tkg.com/tkgseoblog.  We hope the blog will become the most comprehensive case study available on the topic and serve as a guide to businesses who may be considering a similar move.

The old domain, www.thekarchergroup.com, will continue to function, redirecting visitors to www.tkg.com.

Check out this interview from our own Joe Abraham as he discusses the value of maps in the search landscape:

E-Commerce News: ECT News Exclusives: SageRock VP Joe Abraham: Putting Web Marketing on the Map

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This past week I was given to opportunity to be interviewed at WebmasterRadio.fm. If you have never checked them out you owe it to yourself to spend some time over there.

Here’s my interview:

SageRock , specializing in search engine optimization, paid search management and statistical analysis is profiled with founder Sage Lewis

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Google has taken the whole guarantee debate to the next level. They are now warning against a company that tries to make any kind of guarantee whatsoever… natural or paid.

Check out this article:

Google Warns of Companies that Guarantee Top Placement in AdWords

Bottom line, if anyone says they can ‘guarantee’ top placement - whether in the unpaid search results or within AdWords - then buyer beware.

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Due to the overwhelming success of the eMarketing Technique Series this June, Cleveland SEO has been proudly asked back to teach a 2 hour program on Search Engine Organization. This program takes place on Moday, Oct. 1st at Corporate College East from 7-9pm and is open for registration. It will be presented by John Inama from Pilot Fish, David Goebel from the Goebel Group, and Greg Habermann from Sagerock.com.

Here’s a brief intro to the 5 week series..

Learn how to take your business to the next level by leveraging all the
internet has to offer. eMarketing Techniques can be utilized to substantially
grow your business in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. Work with
area experts in a hands-on and practical series, as we explore the power of
eMarketing Techniques.

Download the PDF or visit KeyEntrepeneurs.org for more information. Hope to see you there!

The Karcher Group is exhibiting this week at Search Marketing Expo (SMX Advanced) in Seattle.  Many of us in the industry have been anxiously waiting to see how Danny Sullivan’s new show turns out, so we thought we’d give the good folks back in Cleveland a live update.  We anticipate posting more detailed summaries of the sessions once the conference wraps up, but here are some conference “snapshots” if you will…

General observations from Geoff Karcher (TKG President) and Jen Doerschuk (TKG Web Marketing Manager) – 

• Compared to SES, there are very few exhibitors.  Maybe only 30 or so?   We are one of three SEO firms exhibiting, and the only firm who does Web Development in addition to SEO. 
• There also isn’t a huge crowd (maybe 500-600 vs. thousands at SES), but the attendees here are definitely more educated about SEO. The people visitng our booth seem to know what they’re here for and have higher level questions than we typically get at SES.
• The overall tone of the conference has been positive. Attendees are sharing ideas & rubbing elbows with some of the big names in search, which is creating an informative and laid back atmosphere.
• The trend so far is that if you’re an SEM beginner, you’ve come to the wrong conference! The speakers are presenting a pretty high level of expertise and so far the crowd seems to get it.  It’s nice to sit in a conference and hear about the up & coming strategies, platforms, etc. instead of hearing the same SEO approaches from other Search Engine Conferences. So far, the billing of SMX as “advanced” seems for real.
• As you might expect, many of the heavy hitters within the SEO world are speaking – Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox (Google), Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz), Tim Mayer (Yahoo! Search), Paul Vallez (Ask.com), etc.

Observations from the sessions on Day 1 from Jen:  I’ve already attended 3 sessions today:  “You & A” with Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s Web Spam Team; Paid Search Round-table session with some big names from Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter & Ask.com; and SEO Meets SMM (Social Media Marketing).  Some brief comments –

• Y! Search Marketing admits that 12% - 15% of clicks on the Yahoo! Network are identified & never billed for
• MSN adCenter acknowledges low traffic for advertisers and assures us that they’re working on a solution
• Don’t be afraid of Social Media Marketing (SMM); just be prepared to invest a significant amount of time researching, creating & keeping up on your SMM initiatives

More to come…in the meantime get complete SMX details from Geoff and Jen at http://websense.thekarchergroup.com

What are you doing tomorrow?

Well, if you would like a taste of the best search engine marketing conference in the country, I suggest checking out Search Engine Watch Live! Columbus - May 9th, 2007.

It’s going to be a great show with a lot of super information.

You can learn about it here:

Search Engine Watch Live! Columbus – May 9th, 2007 – The Premier Conference for Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

And there’s a discussion forum on the topic here:
SEW Live! in Columbus, OH - May 9, 2007

I strongly suggest you check it out if you have the time. You’ll be glad you did.

Once again, the search engine optimization folks of the Greater Cleveland area represented themselves extremely well. ClevelandSEO had two session at the eMarketing for Entrepreneurs at Corporate College this past Friday.

The people who spoke were:
Dave Goebel
Jan Limpach
Mark Geyman
Chris Caputo
Leslie Carruthers
Matt Bailey
Sage Lewis

Dan Hanson covered the event well. He put up a bunch of pictures from the event. You can see the ClevelandSEO pictures here:

eMarketing for Entrepreneurs at Corporate College | Great Lakes Geek Photos
Thanks Dan!