Todd Mintz - EzineArticles.com Expert Author

Report this author if you suspect they are involved in any fraudulent practices.

Suggest a topic or article headline you would like the author to write about.

Todd Mintz is the Director of Internet Marketing & Information Systems for S.R. Clarke Inc., a Real Estate Development and Residential / Commercial Construction Executive Search / Recruiting Firm headquartered in Fairfax, VA with offices nationwide. He is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon's Search Engine Marketing Association.

[View Todd Mintz's Extended Author Bio]

[Display Categories] Sort By [Title] [Newest] [Oldest]

Todd Mintz Email Alerts

The Domaining Revolution - Lessons From The Domain Roundtable
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Domain-Names] I (along with fellow SEO's John Andrews, Dustin Woodard, Aaron Wall, Chuck Price & Dave Bascom) attended the 2007 Domain Roundtable in Seattle. There has been a lot written about domaining recently by SEO's... some of it complimentary, and some of it misinformed. I find domaining to be fascinating because I view it as an online extension of old-school business that just so also happens to reasonably immune from the shifting search engine algorithms. Even more compelling, the amount of money that successful domainers earn from their investments is downright scary.

Danny Sullivan & The Formation of a Local SEM Organization
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Search-Engine-Marketing] It's true that Danny Sullivan is indirectly responsible for the formation of SEMpdx (Portland's SEM Organization). At the 2006 SES Seattle Conference, in a conversation with Anvil Media's Kent Lewis, Danny inadvertently (for he's too nice a guy to do something like this deliberately) slighted our Rose City. When Kent relayed Danny's comments to Scott Orth, the desire to form a local SEM organization that would be the envy of much bigger marketplaces was born. One year later, I can state unequivocally that being one of the founding board members has been an extremely valuable, enriching experience.

The SEO Invasion of Facebook
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] Within the community of search engine marketers, a herd mentality definitely exists. When multiple early adapters talk about the same thing at the same time, we all go check it out. In 2006, when Facebook opened to everyone, I signed up, looked around, yawned, and promptly forgot about it. Recently however, many prominent members of the SEO community that I follow and respect all started talking about Facebook simultaneously which told me that I was missing out on an important conversation that I needed to hear and participate in. So, I went back to Facebook, created my page and I now see its enormous potential.

Social Media Marketing = MLM 2.0
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Social-Media] For the first time in many years, I had the privilege (misfortune) to receive (be tormented by) a Multi-Level Marketing presentation (assault). There are many obvious reasons why I have a strong disdain for MLM... probably no different than anyone else's. Fortunately as time moves on, the rising popularity of social media should greatly reduce the effectiveness of MLM 1.0 as a business process, hopefully causing its practitioners to abandon its use. From the ashes of MLM 1.0 should arise a much more pleasant methodology of leveraging relationships via social media to make sales (aka MLM 2.0).

Ask SEMpdx - What is the best way for a Newbie to learn Search Engine Marketing?
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Search-Engine-Marketing] Search Engine Marketing knowledge is a very prized possession. Many people want to learn how to do search for themselves or for their company. However, they don't know how to begin the educational process. I asked my fellow SEMpdx members how they would advise a new entrant into this field.

Using Sex To Market & Brand Your Small Business
[Business:Marketing] Levinson's brilliant article makes analogies between sex and guerrilla marketing...here, I'll focus on a couple examples where sex was blatantly used to market small businesses in atypical guerrilla fashion. Both examples offended people and ruffled feathers. Why was one a brilliant success and one a colossal failure?

Eternal Sunshine of the Domainer Mind
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Domain-Names] So, it is lunchtime on 5-22-07 and I'm looking through the news stories at CNN when I come across the following headline that catches my eye - "FDA Approves No Period Birth Control Pill."

Linkbait 2.0: The Soul of Linkbait (Part 2)
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Search-Engine-Marketing] Part 1 chronicled my "failed" attempt to linkbait my personal reminiscence of Marvin Gaye's 1983 NBA All-Star Game National Anthem . At the end of that story, I wrote that I vowed to start the linkbaiting process anew to use different forms of social media to gain attention for what I've written. I'd like to report on the progress that I´ve made:

Online Reputation Management Begins Offline
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] One Bend, Oregon restaurant owner has discovered the severe online consequences of shoddy offline behavior.

10 Reasons Why I Don't Blog About SEO
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] Though it is possible for new SEO blogs to gain mindshare and readership, I'm happy with my article writing niche and don't want to try to enter an overcrowded, oversaturated SEO blogosphere.

Linkbait 2.0 - The Soul of Linkbait
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Search-Engine-Marketing] I find that many search engine marketing articles that I read are affirmations… they either affirm something I already know (but perhaps hadn't thought about) or, if I don't agree with the article, they affirm that I'm correct and the author isn't. However, every so often, I read articles that cause me to reexamine how I practice SEM.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Alleviate Carpal Tunnel Symptoms in Three Simple Steps
[Health-and-Fitness:Ergonomics] I don't believe I had full blown Carpal Tunnel… but I was certainly on that road. I would be taking Ibuprofen on a regular basis and even stopped work early sometimes when the pain got too much. So, by necessity, I had to investigate solutions. Here's how I reduced my Carpal Tunnel Symptoms to zero:

Dyson DC-15 "The Animal" Product Review
[Shopping-and-Product-Reviews] Hearing the words of many who claim that Dyson is by far the best vacuum cleaner on the market, I sprang for the Dyson DC-15 aka "The Animal"

The Google Grants Program: Click Here For Charity
[Business:Fundraising] I am on the Board of Directors of Search Engine Marketing Professionals of Portland (SEMpdx). One of the stated aims of our organization is that board members are to use our collective internet marketing abilities and talents to support local non-profits. Recently, one such non-profit approached us and asked for our help to create an effective PPC campaign that would make the highest and best use of their Google Grant money. I gladly stepped forward and offered my assistance. When I looked closer at their situation, I discerned that under the terms of their Google Grant, Google funded their AdWords account so that they could receive up to $10,000 worth of complimentary clicks for each month the grant remains in effect.

8 Ways a Job Applicant Can Screw-up Communication with a Prospective Employer
[Business:Careers-Employment] Many employment consultants write articles that give job applicants high-level resume advice that will, if followed, increase your chances of getting positive notice by a recruiter-employer. This isn’t one of those articles. Here are eight ways you could possibly give an employer-recruiter negative "vibes" about your candidacy that might not be obvious to you:

The Web Form: The Online Battleground of Sales & Marketing
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] In the 21st century, much B to B lead generation takes place online and B to B sales organizations (hopefully) deploy web forms on their websites linked to their CRM systems that enable lead capture. Each organization must decide what fields to use in their web forms and whether to make any or all of them mandatory. If Sales & Marketing were to be asked for their input on this question, their respective biases would likely rise to the surface.

The Google News RSS Feed / Google Reader Mashup
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:RSS] Most logically, I would have to implement some sort of RSS solution in order to track 1,700 companies. Manual entry of 1,700 feeds into a feedreader isn't an option; I don't have any programming skills; and I don't have a budget to find someone to program a solution. So what did I do?

Yahoo Music Unlimited: The Perfect Compliment to Any Home Office
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Audio-Streaming] I signed up for Yahoo Music Unlimited (YMU). The service is close to 18 months old…however, I've only been aware of it for the last few months even though I use Yahoo's service offerings many times each day, being wedded to Yahoo via email and fantasy sports addiction. After now having the service for a month, I feel comfortable saying that YMU has become every bit as indispensable as my cable modem & my DVR.

SEM Seeks Compatible Organization For Long Term Relationship
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Search-Engine-Marketing] Over the last several months, I've read multiple threads that noted the explosion in the number of SEO job listings. In these postings, people speculated whether this meant Corporate America was finally recognizing that Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has become an essential core competency that needed to be brought "in-house". I've also read a very funny article about the SEO hiring process from the employer's perspective. However, I have yet to see any experienced SEO/SEM veteran write openly about their experiences looking for a new position. So, I figure that I have an opportunity to write one of the few SEO articles that has yet to be written:.) My former company embarked on a new strategic direction and I made the decision not to continue with them. I had talked to others in my "mostly local" search engine marketing network in Portland and did not see the right opportunity working with any of these folks. So, like any other person looking for something better, I updated my resume and started my job search.

How To Be A Blogging Idol Instead Of An Idle Blogger
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Blogging] To be successful at Search Engine Optimization, it's important that you continually test out new theories and ideas. Before I use new SEO techniques on a client's website, I always test them on one of my own. In order to better understand the application of SEO to blogs, I decided to implement the following experiment:

How To Create Your Own Wikipedia Page
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] Most savvy SEOs know that Google is placing an increased weight on links from "authority" websites. Wikipedia, a free internet encyclopedia that can be edited by any user, is certainly one of the top authority websites in the eyes of Google and I'm certainly not the first SEO to observe that an awful lot of Wikipedia pages are currently ranking quite highly in the SERPS.

Dress Your Website For Success
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Web-Design] So, I recommend to these people that they update their website design prior to commencing SEO. Each industry has different standards for web design. In conjunction with a designer, they should examine the websites of competitors to know what level of site design it will take to make their site comparable to others in their space. It isn´t necessary to spend extra money to have the most "cutting edge" look. Frequently, getting too ambitious with site design could cause you trouble with search engine optimization (so if you are working with an SEO consultant, make sure you check with him / her before undertaking a website redesign). Your updated site design only needs to be representative of others in your industry and I recommend that you take the money saved on the "frilly design extras" and spend it on SEO…the ROI is much better

The Leeroy Jenkins Parable: How Not To Implement An Internet Marketing Strategy
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] A co-worker of mine is a huge fan of the World of Warcraft (WoW) online role-playing game. While sharing with me some hilarious non-family-safe audio about a WoW leader losing his cool over 50 dkp (dragon kill points), he remarked that this clip was the funniest thing about WoW since the video of the now "legendary" player Leeroy Jenkins, which I then viewed for the first time. After laughing myself silly, I came to the realization that Leeroy faced and reacted to a situation analogous to what many businesses face when they decide to market their products and services on the Internet for the first time.

Ginger or Mary Ann? Yahoo! Answers
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] For those who do not know, Yahoo! Answers is (quoting their official blog) "a place where people ask each other questions on any topic, and get answers by sharing facts, opinions, and personal experiences." I hadn't paid much attention to Yahoo! Answers until Danny Sullivan talked about it recently at the May SES Seattle Conference. Danny wrote an excellent overview of Yahoo's "social networking" vehicle, but my focus in this article will be somewhat different.

The Power of Other
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] When I do keyword research for a client, I invariably find a list of relevant words / phrases that will bring targeted traffic to the website if they can be included in the site text. By incorporating these new terms on the website, I am enabling the site to target "The Long Tail." For each targeted keyword added to the existing website, the website has the potential to be ranked and found not just for the keyword added, but for the keyword added in combination with any other word / words on the same page containing the keyword. This usually amounts to an extremely large number of possible searches. By utilizing all the targeted keywords, the site’s ability to be found by prospects has exponentially increased.

Baby Cade's Guide To Making Money With Your Blog Content
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Blogging] Passion is the essence of successful online content creation. With the advent of Blogger and other easy to use blogging platforms, even the unsavvy computer user is able to put content on the web for others to read and respond to. It's even more gratifying to be able to make money from communicating your passion to others ... and it is so easy to do. I believe that most readers of this article are at least adept enough to start a blog with Blogger and perhaps even place a Google Contextual Ad in the code. However, there are many other steps to take that can maximize your “blogging” ability to not only reach your audience but to make money from blog visitors. Using a real example, I will give you a formula that you can easily follow, with little baby steps, that will allow you to start making money with your web content.

The Search Engines Lost My Website...What Can I Do?
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] On the other hand, having your corporate website vanish from the search engines is an extremely serious event that could have major ramifications on your revenues. If this happens to you, don't grieve - take immediate action. As bad at it seems initially, it need not be the end of the world; over the long term, many businesses have gained strength and versatility after dealing with such a catastrophe.

Why Meta Description Tags Suck
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Web-Design] What website owners fail to realize is that their meta description tag will often appear no matter the search query. If the query doesn't map to the tag, the website will be at a significant disadvantage at being chosen by the searcher. Frequently, the problem is compounded by using the same tag on every single page regardless of content. Also, description tags, like all meta tags, are worthless for improving search engine rankings.

How to Setup a PPC Campaign for an Established Website
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:PPC-Advertising] I'm sure most of you have seen articles about how to set up a Pay-Per-Click campaign. The majority of such articles are written for novice webmasters who don't receive much website traffic and have never done the comprehensive keyword research that is so critical for any successful internet effort. As I discovered recently, creating a PPC campaign for a mature website can differ greatly from a typical PPC campaign setup.

The Elasticity of Online Conent
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] As someone in the business of selling Internet marketing services, I also am concerned with maximizing the value of each article for my own business. In other words, how can I increase the number of potential prospects who read my articles?

How To Be An Ideal SEO Client
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:SEO] If your company has selected or will select an SEO vendor to optimize your corporate website for natural search, I offer you kudos for embarking on a process that can generate tremendous revenue for your business. Now, the fun part begins. You'll need to oversee and evaluate a process that is hard to comprehend, has somewhat intangible deliverables, and where the "timing of results" can't be precisely defined. Given this scenario, how can you best work with an SEO to achieve the best outcome for your website?

Boosting Website Lead Conversion With Pay-Per-Click Landing Pages
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:PPC-Advertising] If you're like many marketing professionals today, you're using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising to drive targeted prospects to your company's website, with hope of converting them to a sales lead through an offer or call to action. Unfortunately, many marketers mistakenly send visitors to their corporate website's home page. Why is this a problem? Because most B2B home pages have a large number of possible paths that a visitor can take…only a few of which will convert them into a lead. Even advertisers who are savvy enough to send PPC visitors to a page directly relevant to the search query can still take steps to greatly increase conversions, by following some simple suggestions.

Your Corporate Website: The Best Kept Secret on the Internet
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Web-Development] Many businesses fail to grasp that website development is only the first step to making online sales. Just because your developer created an excellent website according to your specifications does not mean that your site will rank in the top group of search results for any keywords relevant to your goods and services (other than perhaps your corporate name). Without search engine visibility, your prospects will have little chance of finding your website and your company will see, at best, a minimal boost in its Internet sales volume.

What Affiliate Marketers Want
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Affiliate-Revenue] Many affiliate programs treat their affiliates as a "necessary evil" (or worse) instead of a partner with the goal of sales acceleration. Good affiliates who feel mistreated in any fashion will, without the slightest hesitation cease promoting the offending merchant which directly affects the merchant’s bottom line.

RSS Can Feed Your SEO Efforts
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:RSS] Even well-optimized content needs to be periodically refreshed in order to maintain top search engine rankings. However, if you are an SEO working on a contract, you might not have perpetual access to a client’s website. Optimum rankings will likely not hold up if the site stays static. RSS (an acronym for "Really Simple Syndication") feeds are an excellent way to continually freshen website content without having to make periodic content updates.

Give Your PPC Ad "Authority" and Your CTR will Skyrocket
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:PPC-Advertising] Most folks who professionally manage Pay-Per-Click campaigns know the fundamentals of how to achieve an optimum CTR: 1) Place the keyword(s) in the ad title. 2) If possible, place the keyword(s) again in the body of the ad. 3) Create multiple variations of each ad and rigorously test until you arrive at your optimum ad choice/choices. But, what if you’ve done that already and your results are still less than they should be? Do you just give up and accept substandard results?

Corporate Websites: ROI or DOA?
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Web-Development] Most non-nominal expenditures in business are made with the expectation of generating revenue for the company. Corporate websites take a lot of time to develop and are expensive. Businesses know intuitively that if prospects can’t find their website, the site won't ROI for them. Yet, businesses might not know that without a search engine marketing strategy, search engine invisibility is almost certain and the corporate website won't likely generate enough revenue to support its cost of creation. But, by spending an additional sum that is only a fraction of the total website development cost to optimize the website for the search engines, the corporate website can become a workhorse for sales instead of a cash flow drain.