This is a video I made when I went to La Cabane à Sucre in April 2007 with my family.

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Danny Sullivan published a great article I stumble upon today about the latest changes at Google about increasing relevancy to their users through personalization & web history. In a nutshell, everyone who has installed the Google Toolbar (and enables the Web History feature) is sending information to Google about which pages they visit. This information is then calculated and the user’s search results get flavored with this increasingly relevant user-specific information. As a result, not all users are seeing the search results in the same order because of this important change. Personalization & the use of Web History then become a new component of Google’s already robust algorithm. According to the article, it seems like web history now has an impact of every site’s ranking where most visited sites get better position.

According to Gord Hotchkiss, who wrote a lot in the last few weeks about Google personalization through web history on his blog at outofmygord.com, this has a much more dramatic impact that most people imagine. Here is an excerpt in Gord’s words:

“With the introduction of Web history, it’s a whole new ballgame in disambiguating intent.  This allows Google to move far beyond the well tred search path and actually taps into your current browsing behavior to try to determine what’s on your mind right now.  If Sep Kamvar’s personalization algorithm is as powerful as I suspect it is, this could dramatically alter the results that you’re seeing.  The promise of personalization is greatest when it can be applied in areas that are new territory for you.  It helps Google interpret just the kind of site you want to see, given your behavior at the present time.”

What does this all mean to you? You have to build better websites with better content that people would visit often and would be calculated in their web history. It is even better if you have a strong repeat percentage of visitors. Make sure you keep adding content to your site, otherwise your web history & PageRank will suffer and your rankings will plummet.  Over the years, Google has made it increasingly more difficult to rank well in search results. This new element is therefore no different than everything they have been doing in the past. It makes a breakthrough though which is why it is worth noticing.

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La prochaine soirée C’est Extra Vancouver a lieu ce Samedi 28 Avril 2007 au Backstage Lounge sur L’île Granville, pour danser sur la musique française et québecoise des années 60 à aujourd’hui. Encore une fois, toute la francophonie à Vancouver se donne rendez-vous. Près de 200 personnes sont attendu. Les festivités commencent vers 22h00. Manquez pas ça!

Voici quelques photos du dernier C’est Extra Vancouver du 24 mars 2007:


Dan Beauparlant et sa blonde Alia


Ça danse en masse aux soirées C’est Extra Vancouver

Voice des photos de C’est Extra Vancouver. Pour plus d’info sur les prochaines soirées francophones C’est Extra Vancouver ainsi que sur le Spectacle de Louis-José Houde, visitez le site officiel de C’est Extra Vancouver. 

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On Saturday night, during the Yahoo Party in Whistler, I had to pleasure to discover a new band that just released their first album. The band is called Roz Bell and you can find some more info and listen to their music on their Roz Bell myspace page. The singer has an incredible voice and his presence on stage is fabulous. If you can put your hands on their album, I think you won’t regret it.

Roz Bell on Stage at the Yahoo Canada party in Whistler, April 21, 2007

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Wow, what a weekend! I attended the Telus Snowboard Festival over the weekend which is heavily sponsored by Yahoo Canada. I was invited along with all their major Clients in Western part of Canada.

As such, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the staff at Yahoo Canada for organizing such an outstanding event for all the search marketing advocates who took the time out of their personal life to attend. More specifically, I would like to thank a lot of people from the Yahoo Canada Toronto office: Melissa Newal (the organizer), Carolyn Cramer, Jon Finnie, David Bellemare, Mark Lajoie, Iain Wilson & Martin Byrne for keeping us entertained the whole weekend. They did a fantastic job and I can’t wait for next year. I hope their managers share my enthusiasm.

Over the weekend, I had the chance to talk to Carolyn (and all the other Yahoos) about my views of the state of search marketing in Canada and why business people are still resistant to change their media plan to incorporate search marketing as part of the mix. There are a lot of topics that can be brought in to this discussion but in a nutshell, Canadians fear change. We all agreed on this. I have been doing this for so many years now and I think time is our best ally. It must be frustrating to be in the sales position and hearing the same objections from clients over and over again. Carolyn, this battle is not easy but it is worth fighting for. Search rules all spheres of marketing and no one can convince me otherwise. Thank you Carolyn for all the pleasant conversations that keep me excited to continue doing what I love the most. 

Do I have pictures of all of us partying? Of course!


Mark Lajoie, David Bellemare & Carolyn Cramer

Martin Byrne, Jon Finnie & Iain Wilson

And some pictures of the big air show:

And the Yahoo Party:

Can’t wait for next year! 

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SEMPO Canada Working Group which I am a proud co-founder is pleased to announce a new member on the team. Darcy Foster from VKI Studios based in Vancouver (BC) is joining the Canadian Search Marketing group of experts and we believe his extensive experience in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) along with his leadership skills will help us grow the Search Marketing industry in Canada. Here is some more info on Darcy as you may also find in the SEMPO Canada Founding Members.



Darcy Foster is the president and co-founder of VKI Studios. He has over eight years of search marketing experience. He has successfully helped clients grow their online businesses from the early days of AltaVista through to present, where he currently oversees multiple teams responsible for organic SEO, paid search, usability and web analytics. 

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Mark your calendar! The main event of the year in Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto is coming back again soon on June 12-13 2007. I will be there representing SEMPO Canada along with all representatives of the Canadian Search Marketing Industry. During SES, Ken Jurina & I will host a wine & cheese evening session to present the first year of accomplishments within SEMPO Canada. For those who may not know, Search Engine Strategies is the premier event about Search Marketing (SEM) technologies and tactics and we are proud to have this show coming to Canada once a year. Organized by two of the world’s leading search authorities, SES Toronto Conference Chairman, Andrew Goodman and SES Programming Director, Chris Sherman, this show can help you learn:

* How search engines list Web sites for free and through paid placements;
* How to get free “organic” traffic by building a site that pleases search engines and your visitors;
* How to efficiently purchase listings guaranteed to rank your company at the top of search engine results;
* How to calculate the ROI of your search marketing efforts by tracking your visitors from the time they hit your site until they buy? and get tips on improving conversion if they don’t;
* How to build links that generate traffic to your Web site, and how to avoid the penalties of “spamming” the search engines;
* What’s coming next in the constantly evolving world of Web search, and how you can profit from those changes.

Search Engine Strategies Toronto will be held on June 12-13, 2007 at Metro Convention Centre, 255 Front Street West, Toronto (Ontario).



For more information on SES Toronto, please visit the SES Conference website.

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Last week, my good friend James from Boxcar Marketing sent me a great article that triggered a lot of discussion on understanding the consumers reptilian code we are operating with. He sent it for numerous reasons and I have to post it here just to make sure I don’t forget about it. This article help us understanding how our web strategies can be perceived and how to better interact with our numerous audiences, which includes Non-tech savvy marketers. As such, we are trying to find ways to convince them to become user centric.

There is a lot of stuff in this article and I don’t want to summarize it. If you are in marketing, you have to read it: The Reptilian Brain

Here were my thoughts after I read it, just in case you are interested:

1- Search Marketing does not have a code yet because most business people do not have emotions attached to it
2- Traditional media people has an embedded code that was imprinted a long time ago. They can’t change it and don’t want to change it which explains why they want - at all cost - to make search fit within their existent code, as opposed to create a new one.
3- Young people who grow up with Search & Google, and thus have a strong imprint and code with online media manifesto, will make my life easier in 10 years. (Be patient)
4- Unlike most people, I have a strong emotion about search and people can’t relate to me as they do not have the same couple: code + emotion
5- This guy is brilliant and understands what most don’t

It seems like the very first thing I want people to get before they go online (ie search and web development in general) is to become “user centric” in everything they do. That applies to much more than online marketing for that matter. Give & you will warm up. Traditional media advocates can’t do that. That would refer to a brand new code of interacting with consumers to be built, which implies letting go of the older one. It is so reptilian that it is impossible to ask for this much. 

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Oyé!Oyé! Sortez vos agendas!

Il y a une foule d’évenements qui s’en viennent dans la Francophonie à Vancouver:

Je commence par un petit mot aujourd’hui pour vous annoncer que dans le cadre du 18e Festival d’été Francophone de Vancouver cette année, il y aura en première partie Dobacaracol à 19h et surtout PLUME LATRAVERSE a 20h!! Ca sera le Samedi 16 juin au prix de 20$ pour les membres du Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver et 25$ pour les non-membres en pre-vente (à la porte s’il en reste: $25 membres/30$ non-membres).

En plus, le 23 juin à 21h pour la St-Jean Baptiste, ca sera super! La soirée se déroulera au Richards on Richards (d’ailleurs pour ceux qui ne sont jamais allé, la salle est super!) au cout de 10$ pour les non-membres et $5 pour les membres du Centre Culturel Francophone et étudiants. Au programme, il y aura le groupe “LA 8 AU COIN” avec des chansons québecoises d’hier et d’aujourd’hui. En deuxième partie, il y aura le DJ Éric Lenger aux tables tournantes.

Au cours de la journée de la St-Jean Baptiste le 24 juin, il y aura un Tournoi de Volleyball sur la plage avec le DJ Eric Lenger (à confirmer).  Je n’ai pas tous les details encore, mais je vais vous le laisser savoir s’il reste de la place. Tous les détails en temps et lieux.

Et puis, pour ceux qui ne sont pas encore au courant, il y a les Soirées C’est Extra Vancouver environ une fois par mois. La prochaine soirée au ra lieu le 28 avril et c’est vraiment genial puisque c’est la réunion mensuelle de tous les francohones à Vancouver. Les Soirés C’est Extra Vancouver ont lieu au Backstage Lounge à Granville Island et le prix d’entrée est de 10$. Ça commence à 10:00 PM jusqu’à tard.

Voila, je ne suis pas payée par le Centre Francophone alors ne vous inquietez pas, je trouve juste ça génial et ca serait “nice” de vous voir!!!

Passez le message! Plus on est de fous québecois, plus on s’amuse!

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In the last few weeks, I have been thinking, discussing a lot about this article which presents my vision in doing Search Engine Marketing and what it means to me being user centric. This started on a flight to Montreal 2 weeks ago. I have become a not so great traveler over the years so I had to occupy my brain as much as possible. I hate turbulence. But I am an agent of change. Go figure. I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about my preferred subject in search marketing: the search marketing philosophy. Since I have been battling for the implementation of a user centric philosophy in every search marketing plan I have worked on over the last 7 years, it is fair to say that you will find a lot of passion in here explaining this criticized vision from traditional media advocates.

The single most important distinction between traditional media and search marketing, and other professions in the online marketing business, lies in the challenge of adopting a user centric attitude. It is as different as doing target marketing as opposed to being targeted by a user. Call it bipolar if you want, but it does not get more opposite than that. I have been doing search marketing professionally for a long time and everyone I explained search to have had a very hard time understanding (and implementing) that reverse marketing thought process. Even the ones who self proclaimed knowing about search don’t seem to “get” the most basic of its core & fundamental principles, which is why I have to start there & be firm.

Being user centric needs courage
One of my mentors, Gord Hotchkiss, made a blog post a few weeks ago about User centricity and one of the things he pointed out was that companies do not have the courage to be user centric. In his words, he says you need to have balls the size of Texas in order to adopt this mental framework. I have to agree with him, considering the strong resistance I have seen over the years from people who can’t take on this challenge and do not have the courage to step forward. Most companies can’t let go what they have always done and the philosophy they have followed in their traditional advertising interruption marketing way of thinking. They stick to the same self serving branding, key messages & methods and they start doing search with that same attitude that have prevailed in traditional media for more than 50 years. This is why they fail in search marketing & their online presence in general. That gets extended to the ones of their clients unfortunately. As such, Bryan Eisenberg makes it abundantly clear in his book Waiting for your Cat to Bark which basically explains why your customers behave like cats and follow a “what’s in it for me” mantra. In my opinion, you don’t have to look any further. SEM is very simple, once you have the courage to adopt a user centric attitude towards your online presence.

It is all about me
I think most of us like generous people, the ones who reach out for others, the ones who help and listen, the ones who do not mind suffering to alleviate someone else’s pain. You think about someone right now. You know these individuals are remarkable. You also know people that only care about themselves, the ones that are ego centric, selfish and greedy. It seems to me most marketing people, and of course their clients, represent the latter group. They want to start making an interaction according to their own agenda, and take little time to engage a real dialogue with their consumers . They strive to have the most outstanding ad to impress their colleagues so that peers & advertising associations can give them a medal that they will later use to get more business and replicate the past. Whether or not it serves the purpose or reached a business objective is another question which is often overlooked. The user comes last. In my opinion, most advertising people, from a traditional media standpoint follow an “it’s all about me” attitude, which is precisely what we need to break from. This is my observation. Here is the bad news: it is not about you and never will be. 

Copy and paste
One of the things I hate the most in traditional advertising is their lack of creativity when it comes to developing copy for ads. I must have explained it a thousand times; you can’t take your self serving tag lines and stick it online in Google Adwords for instance. How many times have you seen it though? You can’t interrupt the users with a message that only serves you, the advertiser. Most people simply copy & paste across all media channels and wonder why it is not working like they have planned. A lot of companies are using their self serving expressions & tag lines in paid search campaigns, as opposed to trying to be relevant for the user. Even phrases to TELL the users what to do won’t work. Most of the time, they fail to include the keywords users are using in their copy and fail to mention in what way the users can benefit from visiting their site. They only think about this potential exchange from their perspective. No one wants to be friend with you if you only think about you. Like Seth Godin, the author of Permission Marketing, once said, marketing online is about converting a stranger into a friend and a friend into a customer (and finally into a lifetime customer). So in order to convert a stranger into a friend, you have to be friendly. Here is how you can do this.

Help them, be admirable & believe
The very first thing you must do before launching a SEM plan is to understand how your audiences, feel, think and which search queries they use to express their intentions, and why. You have to understand them if you want to help them. If they want to shop around, let them, the same way you would let them if you had a retail shop. Be nice, be friendly & inform them about what you have. Don’t pressure them to buy. Bid on keywords that are relevant to them, even if they are not purchase oriented. Serve them well. It will be rewarding in the long run. Be generous, be kind, don’t interrupt them & don’t use copy they would find in the unfriendly and intrusive traditional marketing formats. Believe. Think of the best sales person you have had in your last purchase in adopt the same attitude. Sometimes we buy because we have had a great service. It pays to listen. Online is no different.

Conclusion
Being successful in search marketing involves having the right attitude. It involves being really interested to help the users in their decision making process through the dozens of search results they can choose from. It involves genuinely be caring about them and their search for a problem to solve, which is expressed through their search query. In one word, you have to be user centric. You must have the courage to put yourself & your client, second. If you embrace this philosophy, you are on the right path to become a good search marketer. Don’t ever, ever let go of this perspective, regardless of the amount of people who will ask you to. In order to become a search marketer, you have to be capable of standing for what you believe in, every single day. The rest will fall into place and your search campaigns will rock. Therefore, if you want to do search marketing as part of your media plan, you have to be willing to change your way of thinking & embrace a user centric attitude. If you fail to do so, I am confident that your web strategy as a whole, or the one of your Client, has little chance to make the headlines.

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Every time I work on a site where traffic goes up seriously, I think it is a good practice to set up a Website Uptime Monitoring tool. In a nutshell, uptime can be defined as the time during which a web server is working without failure. If the server is down, it is called by contrast downtime. In the best case scenario, your site would be available 100% of the time but depending on where it is hosted (and how), this percentage can be of 99% or 95% or even lower. That’s why it is important to keep track of your site uptime by using an Uptime Website Monitoring tool.

Today I want to share with you a a great & free resource that does that. It is called InternetVista. The good thing about this tool is that there is no time limit to the free trial version account. Alternatively, the verification of the uptime of your site is done only every 60 minutes as opposed to a paid service where verifications can be done every 5 minutes and even with shorter time periods.

The free trial version of InternetVista Uptime Website Monitoring tool offers the following:

- Monitoring of 1 website (http)
- Verification every 60 minutes
- Email alerts
- Weekly reports by email
- Available free of charge with no time limit

I think every Search Marketer who manages a small or big daily pay per click budget money to promote a site on behalf of a client should have one of these Free Uptime Monitoring tools in place. Try it and let me know what you think.

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My awesome & very talented friends Monique Trottier and James Sherett from Boxcar Marketing have just started to publish their newsletter called Underwire: Full Support for Non-Techies.

Since we talk the same language and have similar audiences, I strongly recommend you subscribe to their Underwire newsletter. It covers numerous topics in the area of Web Analytics, Web design & development 101, Web strategy, online promotion, search marketing, podcasting, blogging etc. Last month, Monique & James talked about the basics of understanding your webstats, which I think is an awesome piece. I am pointing to it every time someone asks me a question about terminology 101 in Web Analytics. 

Here are the complete March Underwire News and the April Underwire News. The latest edition explains how to use photos on your site. It is very helpful. There is also a Monique’s pick of the month in every edition.

Feel free to give her some feedback about the newsletter as she is tuning the content to what you guys like.

Here they are in their Think Salmon attire:

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For a very long time, I thought the keyword research tool within Google Adwords was only available for those who already have a Google Adwords account. A few weeks ago, I came across a reference that was talking about the Google External Keyword Research Tool. I am wondering how long it has been open to public. If you know, please share it with me. I am very thankful that Google introduced this great keyword research tool for everyone. As such, did you know that depending on your geo-targeting campaigns settings, the keyword research tool yields a different set of suggestions? I was working on a campaign for UK & Australia back in December and discovered some very interesting differences in suggested search terms between countries. Make sure you take the time to select your search terms carefully. Now, you have no excuse.

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Il y a longtemps, j’ai dû passer un an à Montreal pour des raisons multiples et pendant ce temps j’en ai profité pour écrire cet article qui détermine les avantages de la promotion d’un site via les moteurs de recherche. C’est un article en français et je vous en fait part ici, en entier. Bien qu’il fut écrit il y a quelques années déjà, les fondements du marketing sur Internet via les moteurs de recherche n’ont pas changé.

La promotion d’un site Internet a bien changé au cours des dernières années. Après les déboires des dot-coms des débuts, la surenchère des prix des bannières publicitaires et, plus récemment, des fameuses pop-ups que tous détestent, il faut se questionner. Comment peut-on promouvoir un site Internet en 2007? Pendant longtemps on a cru que la promotion d’un site se faisait avec l’achat de bannières publicitaires de la même façon qu’on achète un espace publicitaire dans un magazine. Or, le mode de paiement des bannières, au coût par mille (CPM), soit le coût de 1 000 impressions de bannières, correspondait à l’époque à plusieurs dollars par visiteur, ce qui finalement générait un ROI (Retour sur l’investissement) négatif! La plupart des dot-coms de tous les secteurs d’activités sont arrivés à ce piètre résultat. Pendant que Yahoo détenait 80% des parts de marché au niveau de la recherche sur Internet en 1997, Google développait un algorithme de recherche puissant, qui sortait des normes établies par AltaVista, Excite, Lycos et les autres moteurs de tout accabit. Le marketing via les moteurs de recherche, communément appelé référencement de sites, a pris naissance. Puisque tous les internautes (et vous aussi je parie) utilisent les moteurs de recherche pour trouver une information, il est dorénavant très judicieux d’utiliser ce véhicule de promotion par lequel ce sont les consommateurs qui partent à la recherche des vendeurs de produits et services, ce qui en terme d’efficacité surpasse toutes formes de marketing traditionnel.

Au fil des ans, les moteurs se sont mis à développer des produits et se sont associés les uns aux autres pour rentabiliser leurs services aux quelque 619 millions d’internautes à travers le monde. Une nouvelle norme a donc vu le jour au niveau de la promotion de sites sur Internet : la visibilité via les moteurs de recherche. Les professionnels dans ce domaine sont (encore) rares et passent pour des marginaux tellement les connaissances de ce secteur sont méconnues. On retrouve d’ailleurs un nombre incroyable de mythes tous plus farfelus les uns que les autres au niveau de la promotion de sites, comme en témoignent les statistiques, puisque 94% des sites n’obtiennent pas d’achalandage de l’ensemble des moteurs de recherche (en 2003). [Je parie que le pourcentage est le même en 2007]

Pourtant, aujourd’hui, il est clair que la promotion de sites avec des bannières publicitaires et les pop-ups est vouée à disparaître. Google vient d’ailleurs de lancer une fonctionnalité fort intéressante sur sa nouvelle barre d’outils de recherche (http://toolbar.google.com) permettant d’enlever toutes les publicités indésirables (pop-ups) dans votre fureteur. Vous pouvez télécharger cette barre d’outils gratuitement !

la solution : la promotion via les moteurs de recherche
Au cours des deux dernières années, l’univers de la promotion via les moteurs de recherche s’est adapté aux nouvelles conditions économiques du Web. De nouveaux outils peu dispendieux, extrêmement effiaces et donc rentables ont vu le jour et le positionnement de sites est devenu nettement plus sophistiqué. Une bonne dose de connaissances, de travail et de budget en Marketing électronique est désormais nécessaire pour faire fonctionner une entreprise sur le Web. Pendant que tous les gens d’affaires croient encore à tort qu’il suffit d’être “indexé” pour générer du trafic sur un site Internet, les moteurs de recherche eux ont grandement changé les règles du jeu. Google.com par exemple, qui détient maintenant 60% des parts de marché au niveau de la recherche sur Internet, a instauré des barêmes extrêmement sévères, ce qui fait que tous ceux qui utilisent Google sont satisfaits des résultas obtenus. Ce sujet fera à lui seul le contenu d’un autre article, mais on peu en déduire que la route est longue, ardue et requiert des investissements substantiels en temps et en argent pour obtenir de bonnes positions dans les moteurs de recherche.

Si vous voulez mesurer votre visibilité actuelle sur Internet, je vous conseille d’utiliser un des outils offerts par marketleap.com (http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm). Vous entrez simplement votre URL ainsi que le mot clé le plus descriptif de ce que fait votre entreprise et vous allez obtenir un rapport détaillé sur 11 moteurs de recherche. Si vous n’êtes pas dans les 3 premières pages, communiquez avec moi dans les plus brefs délais: Alexandre Brabant.

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I am proudly announcing that this week of April 09, 2007, I have my very first strong lead for a Search Marketing project because of my eMarketing 101 mobile, pictured here before a trip to Whistler:

I have had those eMarketing 101 stickers for some time, which makes a lot of TJ Jeep owners jealous (I swear). Some actually confessed they want to start a business just to be able to put some stickers on, “because your Jeep looks cool, man”. If you see me around, please wave, say hi or anything and give me your card. Traffic is what it is all about, so why not advertising my own Search Marketing shop on the street. Makes sense right? 

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