About a month ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Keith DuBay, author of the New Media blog for Colorado Biz Today. Today he completed a 3 part series, based partially on our conversations, where he discussed a lot of important topics relevant to search engine marketers right now.
The first article in the series, A conversation with an SEO analyst, Part 1 of 3: Why Cindy Krum thinks mobile-specific Web platforms are hooey discussed what might be in store for us all as the adoption of the mobile web increases in the US. While I don’t recall ever using the word ‘hooey’ in my life, I do agree that it is a good description of people who insist on setting up separate websites for mobile browsers. Recent news about Google Search enabled BMW’s and Mercedes in Germany, Italy and France, as well as the excellent mobile browsing experience available on the iPhone illustrate the idea that there is ‘one web.’ As technology progresses we will not be able to create separate websites for all the different web-enabled devices that might render our website, so why waste the time, energy and resources trying. Better to create one site that will work across the board.
The second article in the series, New Media Blog search engine optimizing part II: Key words don’t cut it anymore, gave a great overview of how search engine algorithms have changed through the years, and what is important to search engines now. The final article in the series, Paid links OK but so-called contextual links chip away credibility discussed the implications of paid link and sponsored blogging (Pay-per-Post) and how those miro-economies are changing online. Keith believes that undisclosed paid links hurt the credibility of any site that uses them. While I believe that the debate on paid links will eventually level out to some middle ground, paid links are quite the hot topic in the search marketing community right now.