The first Boston SEO Meetup of 2012 was held January 30th. The event featured a case study about how to attract attention to your brand and build awareness and links. It also featured guest speaker Vitaly Bulgakov, senior software engineer, Ph.D. Bulgakov has created a keyword recommendation tool.

Assistant organizer Brian Hawkins began the evening by briefly sharing his case study on breaking a world record for the longest phone call. Brian explained that an innovative way to get legitimate inbound links to your website is to be fun and do something to make your brand stick out and get noticed. Featuring Harvard students, the event successfully broke the record for the longest phone call. This resulted in hundreds of links and getting featured on the HubSpot podcast. Thinking of something creative to do with your brand and leveraging relationships can open the door to new opportunities and build a link portfolio.

Next, Vitaly Bulgakov demonstrated his keyword recommendation tool, http://KeywordsRetrieval.com. This tool can generate keywords semantically related to a topic of interest for any kind of business. It is based on the algorithms created as part of “Semantic Technologies for Web Solutions” research initiative. It’s a way to find new keywords based on the keywords being used by the competition.

The night ended with challenge questions. One person asked if it was a good strategy to include an anchor text link on a page that linked to the same page. The general consensus was that it may have worked in the past for internal linking purposes but that it wasn’t a good strategy to use now. Another person asked what the best recommendations were for recovering from the Google Panda update. Suggestions included cleaning up your content, adding better content, changing titles, increasing backlinks, and cleaning up the anchor text.

Brick Marketing was the food sponsor for the evening.

January Boston SEO Meetup Event Recap is a post from: Boston SEO

Komarketing Hiring Search Engine Optimization Manager is a post from: Boston SEO

Boston Search Engine Marketing Job Description

The pay per click specialist will be responsible for all of our pay per click (PPC) accounts and ultimately manage this department as it grows. He or she will work with our clients mostly via email and phone calls with occasional in house/offsite meetings. We have an SEO department, so traditional SEO skills are a plus but not required as this is a full time PPC job. You will be responsible for developing keyword sets, ad groups, ad copy, and goal tracking in Google Analytics. We have excellent analytics skills in house, so your analytics skills can be limited. Our analytics experts do a monthly report for all clients, so as long as you set up a goal/s to track, your info will be in our monthly PowerPoint presentation.

This position is in the office full time so please no freelance, outsource or work from home requests.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES:
- Create and manage ad groups and keyword lists
- Track Leads and campaign process and send reports to clients
- Answer client questions and implement ongoing changes to increase ROI
- Track changes in how PPC tools work and be our thought leader in this area
- Construct and prepare weekly performance reports for internal purposes
- Write one blog post a month, if interested, on our blog

QUALIFICATIONS:
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Google Adwords expertise (Adwords certified if possible but not required)
- Proficient in Excel (MS Office)
- Multitasking and exceptional project management skills
- Knowledge of display advertising / content network helpful but not required
- General HTML knowledge a plus
- Having worked at a digital agency or on large volumes of PPC accounts is a plus
- Working with lawyers is a plus

Interested candidates who meet the minimum qualifications for this position may apply by replying to this message and attaching a resume or listing qualifications. No phone calls please.
Desired Skills & Experience

This is ideally a senior position. We are an agency with lots of accounts in competative spaces.

Company Description

McDougall Interactive has been managing internet marketing campaigns since 1995, has won web marketing awards and has been featured in the Boston Herald and on Internet Retailer. We are currently in Danvers in a great space next to a golf course, tennis courts that we can use and a pond. We have a creative and thought leader approach to Internet marketing with a seminar series and book coming out this year. Come join our exciting team and company.

Boston Search Engine Marketing Specialist Job Wanted is a post from: Boston SEO

As a Boston SEO consultant, I talk to a lot of clients about how important search engine trust is. The older and more established your website is (along with a variety of other factors), the more likely your site is to rank well in the SERP. In my opinion, the search engines want B2B website owners to succeed with their SEO because it cleans up the search results for them. Think about it—the better written and optimized your site, the more likely it is to have relevant information for a searcher. Your white hat B2B SEO campaign gives Google and Bing a better final product!

However, search engine trust is not the only thing that B2B website owners need to be worrying about. You also have to work to gain consumer trust. Searchers are smart; they know that just because a website is ranked first that doesn’t automatically mean it’s the best website for them. In fact, recent studies have shown a decreasing click-through-rate for the top positioned websites. Searchers are willing to dig deeper and deeper into the search results to find exactly what they are looking for. Ranking well is no longer enough to win the SEO race!

Also, it’s rather unlikely that a B2B decision maker will instantly convert once they arrive on your website. Most B2B sales cycles are incredibly long (and deal with much more complicated and expensive purchases) so decision makers are going to take their time choosing the right vendor. You need to convince them that your company is the one they should do business with!

How do you build B2B consumer trust?

First and foremost, you need to get your website in order. Is it easy to navigate? Can visitors find the information they are looking for quickly? Does the content explain not only what services/products your company offers but how those services/products make a difference to your clients? Do you have call-to-actions and lead forms prompting visitors to take the next step in the buying cycle? All of these factors and more can make or break your website in the eyes of a potential customer. Remember, no matter what kind of off-site link building your company does, it’s your website that is ultimately going to convince a visitors to convert.

Secondly, you need to build up your overall online presence. The more touch points you can create with your audience the more times you can interact with and engage them, creating more opportunities to build trust. B2B marketers shouldn’t be afraid to engage in social media and content marketing, as these are both great ways to create more and more touch points. Every social profile is one more place to engage in a dialogue with your customers and every blog post, article and whitepaper is one more resource for your audience to keep on hand. Also remember that content marketing goes a long way in building your industry authority and establishing credibility with your target market.

B2B websites should strive to be as transparent as possible when it comes to their SEO. People want to do business with other people, not faceless corporations. If your customers feel like they are dealing with an actual person that truly wants to help them, not just sell them, that will go a long way in building consumer trust.

About the Author

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com), a full-service SEO and social SEO solutions firm in Boston, MA. With nearly 13 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his B2B SEO knowledge by contributing regularly to the Brick Marketing Blog and by publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com

Search Engine Trust Isn’t Enough for B2B Websites is a post from: Boston SEO

Remember when @RyanAbood the CEO of GourmetGiftBaskets.com presented in August 2009?

He shared his personal story about getting de-indexed from google for buying SEO links during his peak Q4 holiday season. Then he shared how we went on a viral linkbait journey to create the worlds largest cup cake. See Designated Editor’s or Social Boot Strap event recap blog posts for a refresher. Ryan continues to keep breaking world records with the largest cup of coffee at Blog World

World’s Longest Phone Call!

Well I’m on a mission to take home a Guineas book of world record attempt for the longest phone call conversation sponsored in part by Pingo’s International calling cards. I’ll be working with Harvard students as the official time keeper during this week’s two day call.

Harvard student group, @HGeneralist, will be staging the longest phone conversation between two people as both a performance art installation and a world record attempt scrutinized by Guinness World Records.

I could use your help in making this a success for a future case study.  Please be kind with links & tweets to promote this attempt!

Please Spread The Word!

In an effort of making this a viral marketing success story, I could use your help to start the word of mouth engine!

1. Watch it Live

Follow the live event on YouStream

2. Attend

Thursday at 12:00am until Friday, January 20, 2012 at 10:00pm at Harvard’s Adams Pool Theater for www.AWorldRecordAttempt.com

I’ll be the official time keeper from 4pm to 12pm on Thursday then 5am to 10am on Friday. To assist in assuring the rules.

Pinch us to make sure we’re alive, pour ice down our shirts. Be creative. You’re not coming to watch. You’re coming to play over the course of at least 43 hours, 8 minutes, 55 seconds.

3.   Tweet It  / Facebook Update

World’s Largest Phone Call Attempt!  www.bostonseo.org/news/584 Sponsored by @TelephoneCard with official time keeper @BrianHawkins

4.  Links PLEASE

Please simple share this blog post!!! www.bostonseo.org/news/584

About The Author:

Brian Hawkins is the assistant organizer for the Boston SEO Meetup. He’s a dot com survivor that went on to work at two leading SEO agencies before becoming a father of two. He’s bin organizing these Boston SEO networking group since 2006. He’s currently the Internet marketing manager for Pingo.com. A global virtual prepaid calling card service. Follow him at @BrianHawkins or friend at

www.Facebook.com/OnlineMarketingPro

Guinness World Record Attempt for the Longest Phone Call! is a post from: Boston SEO

Boston Marketing Manager Job

Now hiring at @ZoomInfo a BostonSEO.org sponsor of career open houses. Next one is on Jan 17th. RSVP now to show your skills to win Mac book Air, iPad or Kindle Fire!

At ZoomInfo we encourage creativity, value innovation, demand teamwork, expect accountability and cherish results. If you are a take charge, take initiative, get stuff done individual we want to talk to you! We have high aspirations for the company and are looking for the right people to help fulfill the dream. We strive to continually improve every aspect of the company and use cutting edge technologies and processes to delight our customers and rapidly increase revenues. West coast culture close to home.

ZoomInfo employees receive a generous benefits package, and enjoy working with and learning from the best and the brightest in our dynamic industry. We recognize and reward outstanding performance, and encourage growth. So whether you’re right out of school or at the height of your career, come join our winning team!

Description

ZoomInfo owns several powerful marketing assets waiting to be leveraged and utilized. Our ZoomInfo.com site enjoys traffic of several million unique visitors each month and growing. We have detailed information on 5 million companies and 50 million people with their email addresses. These assets are waiting for you! If you know how to use them effectively to grow revenues, increase user registration and expand our community of data contributors we want to talk to you.

As a key marketing player you will work very closely with our Sales and Engineering teams, and you will be able to demonstrate results within a short period of time. Since we have so many opportunities you will be able to focus on those that best match your skills and are close to your heart. In our company – interesting work plus demonstrated results equals happiness.

We believe that Marketing is at the heart of what we do. By joining us you will be able to directly impact our future and pinpoint your specific contribution to the success of the company.

Desired Requirements

* Results oriented with a take charge, self-starter attitude is a must!
* Strong analytical skills, heavy user of Excel and other report generation tools
* Very strong technical skills and aptitude, up to the ability to design landing pages and do simple web development
* Experience in using email marketing tools (Eloqua preferred), and integration with SalesForce
* Excellent writing skills a big plus
* Graphic Design skills a huge plus
* Proven creative capabilities
* Bachelors Degree in Marketing, Business or Engineering
* At least 2 years proven experience in launching successful marketing programs with demonstrated and documented success
* Ability to manage multiple deadline-driven tasks simultaneously
* Collaborative, team-oriented work style

http://zoominfo.hrmdirect.com/employment/view.php?req=77647&

Boston Marketing Manager Job – Zoom Info is a post from: Boston SEO

Director of Marketing – ZoomInfo

A BostonSEO.org sponsor!

Director of Marketing

At ZoomInfo we encourage creativity, value innovation, demand teamwork, expect accountability and cherish results. If you are a take charge, take initiative, get stuff done individual we want to talk to you! We have high aspirations for the company and are looking for the right people to help fulfill the dream. We strive to continually improve every aspect of the company and use cutting edge technologies and processes to delight our customers and rapidly increase revenues.

ZoomInfo employees receive a generous benefits package, and enjoy working with and learning from the best and the brightest in our dynamic industry. We recognize and reward outstanding performance, and encourage growth. So whether you’re right out of school or at the height of your career, come join our winning team!

Overview

ZoomInfo owns several powerful marketing assets waiting to be leveraged and utilized. Our ZoomInfo.com site enjoys traffic of several million unique visitors each month and growing. We have detailed information on 5 million companies and 50 million people with their email addresses. These assets are waiting for you! If you know how to use them effectively to grow revenues, increase user registration and expand our community of data contributors we want to talk to you.

We believe that Marketing is at the heart of what we do. The Director of Marketing will report directly to the CEO and will own all marketing activities; including the web site with its growing traffic, conversion of the traffic to leads, data contributions and online sales. The director will also be responsible for lead generation, branding, marketing communication and daily email communication with millions of users.

Requirements

* 5+ years of marketing experience where you handled many facets of marketing and had exposure to a broad gamut of activities
* Experience managing, guiding and mentoring a team of at least 3-4 marketing professionals doing all facets of marketing
* Past responsibility for the entire marketing strategy and execution for your company or for a meaningful product line, with a proven track record of growing revenues
* Experience in high tech is a big plus
* Highly analytical
* Creative but grounded in measuring results
* Experience with:
* Email marketing
* Lead generation
* Web site design
* Traffic generation
* Customer acquisition and retention
* Experience with both B2B and B2C
* A hands on and roll up your sleeve attitude!

Apply Now

Director of Marketing – ZoomInfo is a post from: Boston SEO

Next 3 Boston SEO Meet Ups Scheduled for 2012!

RSVP Now for, Monday Jan 30th, Monday Feb 27th OR Monday March 19th

All hosted at the Arlington Public Library in the community room down stairs

+ Sponsored Event on Jan. 17th

ZoomInfo.com Marketing Open House to Win MacBook Air, iPad 2 or Kindle Fire !!

BostonSEO.org SPONSORED EVENT:

ZoomInfo Invites You to a Marketing Open House & Contest!

Would you like the opportunity to showcase your work to a great group of people, try to win a MacBook Air, an iPad 2 or a Kindle Fire? Maybe even find your next dream marketing job?

ZoomInfo is searching for a few A players to join it’s marketing team. If you have at least five years of marketing experience, are very tech savvy, possess an entrepreneurial spirit, are extremely focused on results.

ZoomInfo IS HIRING!

1. Director of Marketing

2. Marketing Manager

About ZoomInfo

A leading B2B directory and business information provider that offers real-time, in-depth profiles of millions of businesses and employees and the market’s most powerful tools for searching and targeting.

Blog: http://www.zoominfo.com/business/blog/

www.Facebook.com/ZoomInformation

www.Twitter.com/ZoomInfo

More Details & RSVP at http://go.zoominfo.com/marketing-open-house

Please support are sponsors

Because they help us cover expenses to bring in some amazing speakers for 2012.

1. Share the event link

To all your Boston marketing peeps http://go.zoominfo.com/marketing-open-house

2. Tweet it

@ZoomInfo is hosting a Marketing Open House & Contest on 1/17! Join Us and possibly find your next dream marketing lnkd.in/FSxK9b

Next 3 Meetups Booked & Marketing Open House to Win MacBook Air, iPad 2 or Kindle Fire !! is a post from: Boston SEO

Blogging is arguably the great equalizer of the Internet. Anyone with a keyboard and Internet connection can sign up for a free blog and become a publisher—something that used to be a “members only” community. There are some really great things about anyone and everyone being able to start a blog, and there are some really bad things about giving everyone the chance to publish their opinions/ideas and call them facts. In my opinion, I have never come across a business in any industry that couldn’t benefit in some way from launching and writing a business blog.

However, when you are managing a business blog, as opposed to a personal blog, there are some very important things you need to keep in mind.

1. If you can’t afford to own your blog, don’t even bother.

Personally, I think maintaining a business blog on a free domain is only going to hurt your business and brand in the long run. For one thing, it looks bad to potential customers. If you can’t afford to host your own blog, why should they trust you with their business? Secondly, if you don’t own your blog’s domain you don’t really own your blog. Essentially, you are renting the space from the blogging platform. This means you have limited opportunities for customization and they have the ability to shut you blog down whenever they want. It puts your blog in a very vulnerable place.

2. Remember you are writing as the company.

It’s very easy to inject your own opinions and personality into a blog post. If you are writing for your own personal blog it’s essential to sound like yourself! But if you are writing on the behalf of your company or one of your Boston SEO clients, you have to write from the point of view of the brand. You have to take stands that accurately reflect the beliefs and attitudes of the company, even if they don’t align with your own.

3. Only start when you are ready to commit.

If you are just blogging on a personal blog for fun, there is no real time frame that you have to produce content within—you can just write whenever the mood strikes. But if you are blogging for your livelihood as a professional blogger or for the long term success of your company you better be prepared to strap in for the long haul. I tell my Boston SEO clients that I rather they not have a blog than launch one and leave it to collect online cobwebs. Before you launch a business/professional blog, make sure you are ready to put in the time and effort that will help is succeed.

About the Author

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com) a Boston social SEO and white hat link building firm. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com

Are You Blogging for Your Livelihood? is a post from: Boston SEO

On Monday, November 14^th, the Boston SEO Meetup event was held at the Arlington Library. Due to a last minute cancellation by the evening’s scheduled speaker, the event switched into SEO roundtable mode, with SEO veterans answering the questions of several new attendees, swapping SEO success stories and discussing the state of SEO in general.

Before the roundtable discussions began, Boston SEO Meetup founder Dave Matson took a few minutes to share with the group some of the interesting things he learned at PubCon Las Vegas. A few of the key findings he shared were:

• In an effort to provide better search results for users, the search engines are now looking at sites as a whole, not just at the individual pages. Site owners should take a serious look at their site, as a few bad or spammy pages can drag the rest of your site down with them.
• Social sharing signals are massively important. Site owners should strive to create content that is shareable and encourage social connections on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to share/post content.

Dave talked about his own attempts to make content more shareable, by capitalizing on a hot topic that could be tied back to his brand. Dave operates the site getlawyerleads.com, which focuses on generating leads for criminal defense attorneys nationwide. He freely admitted that he doesn’t work in the most “shareable” industry, but that doesn’t mean he can’t produce creative content that people will be interested in. He wrote a post about what Occupy Wall Street protestors should do if they were arrested and the post eventually found its way onto several Occupy Facebook pages and earned over 1,000 Likes in the process! As Dave said, “it’s basic information that is repackaged in the right way for the right audience. Whether you’re onboard [with the movement] or not, these people are passionate.”

The roundtable section of the evening focused on a few main topics including: geolocation, mobile SEO, QR codes and link building. Some of the main points to come out of those discussions included:

• Drill the mobile user experience down to two buttons, click-to-call or fill out a lead form. The less work a mobile user has to do to connect with your site and your brand the better.
• QR codes aren’t being as quickly adopted by US consumers as they are overseas, but there are very unique branding opportunities available for larger brands willing to pay.
• You don’t have to focus your link building on just companies within your niche. It’s worth taking one step out of the box and building a network of related links. For instance, one attendee (bostonlimos.com) got advice to build relationships with complimentary services such as hotels, salons, restaurants and so forth to expand their link building capabilities.
• It’s hard to trip the search engine “filter” when you are being legitimate with your SEO. One or two mistakes shouldn’t negatively impact your site. Just don’t make it a habit!

It was announced that there will be no Boston SEO event for December 2011.

Brick Marketing was the event’s food sponsor.

November Boston SEO Meetup Event Recap is a post from: Boston SEO