Great Idea, Great Place - SEO Roadshow

Instead of paying money to go to an SEO conference then waiting for the bar afterwards for the good stuff, some SEOs got together a few years ago and came up with the idea of SEO Roadshow. Basically, bypass the conference, use that money to go somewhere cool, then hang out in a bar with a bunch of SEOs. Sounds like a great idea and Ireland is the choice of location this year!!

How to Move Your WordPress Blog to a New Domain

Here's a good little step by step tutorial by Joost on moving an existing WordPress blog to a new domain.

SEOBook Training Program

SEOBook just announced and launched a new subscription based training program and online community. It sounds interesting and Aaron's content is great. $100 a month, but the first 100 to sign up get is for $50 a month.

Who's Googling You?

I got a kick out of this story that is hitting Google Trends for the search term, 'Who's Googling You?' Basically there was a news piece done about 'caller ID' for the internet. It begs the obvious question for an SEO, how would a company be able to provide data about who is doing a search for your name as they claim to be able to do?

A bit of digging revealed the answer, Ziggs.com (sorry no link for this service), is a site in which you can create a personal/professional profile page. In there you can search other profiles, blah, blah. But the search engine data for queries on your name? It's a premium service they offer, charging $5 a month. With that, they buy PPC placements with using your name and send you an email alert each time someone clicks on your profile page in the sponsored results. Brilliant business model. Had to laugh on that one. What is really ridiculous is that they are getting major media coverage with this.

So how many clicks is your name going to generate in a month? 2, 3, wow, even 20 at $0.10 a click? Then they pocket the difference. Suppose it would be fun to spam all their listings and drive a bunch of clicks through.

Search Marketing Spend by Search Engine and Continent

This compares the big boys, Google, Yahoo,and MSN search advertising spend. Interesting that Yahoo is actually dominant in Japan.

European Internet Usage

This is a good breakdown of internet usage, penetration, and main properties by European country. The data is from April 07.

Hitwise Presidential Candidate Demographic Data

Hitwise offers demographic data as an option with their web data service. One of their analysts offered this look at traffic to McCain's, Clinton's, and Obama's websites, based on bucketed demographic persona types. Overlaying the data allows for great a comparative look at the candidates breadth and level of appeal.

The short of it is that McCain appears to appeal to a broader population segment than Hillary and a far broader than Obama.