Google has teamed up with the Hasbro, the makers of board game sensation Monopoly to launch an online, multiplayer version of the game called Monopoly City Streets.

The game, which launched earlier this month, uses Google Maps as the game board and allows players to compete in a real time, worldwide version of the game, effectively creating the largest Monopoly tournament ever held. From the web site:

“The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence. Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.”

Although very little advertising was done leading up to it, the Twitter Effect on launch day brought the site to a standstill due to the sheer volume of buzz it created as players began tweeting their progress in the game.

It seems that Twitter isn’t the only hiccup to hit the venture. According to the Monopoly City Streets blog, there has been widespread cheating and foul play reported, forcing the site administrators to take the game offline for 3 hours this week while they manually addressed the issues.

Still, the game looks like a lot of fun for those with the time to invest.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%Play Monopoly Worldwide With Google Maps%%

Play Monopoly Worldwide With Google Maps

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Google Maps has launched a new feature called Place Pages. It aggregates a bunch of content for a given search result and places it on a single page. So, if you do a search for a local establishment, you can see user reviews, a map and details about the business such as phone, address and hours.

Bing and Yahoo! already do the same thing with their local search results. Ask.com does something similar by incorporating Citysearch. Here’s what Google’s version looks like:

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Eye tracking studies can be a very valuable tool that can help identify significant problems with your website or landing page. Unfortunately eye tracking requires expensive and specialized hardware and software to be used, and live test subjects to observe and measure.

In-page Web analytics can also provide detailed heatmaps of people’s clicking and scrolling behavior. But these also require the landing page to be properly tagged and measure the behavior of real site visitors. This data takes time to collect and can only be gathered from “live” pages.

Recent advances in the study of computational attention and human visual processing now offer a new and exciting alternative. Computer algorithms can be used to simulate where people will look during the first few seconds of interacting with your site and create a detailed attention heatmap of your landing page.

This approach has several advantages:

• Instant results – upload an image of the landing page and get your answer
• High degree of accuracy – 75%+ correlation with eye tracking and mouse tracking
• Works with page mock-ups – can be used with in-progress mock-ups before the page goes live

SiteTuners.com has recently announced the launch of a FREE private beta program (limited to the first 5000 sign-ups) for it new AttentionWizard.com visual attention simulation tool. Free daily heatmaps will be available for all participants for the length of the beta program. A paid version with per-image based pricing is expected by Q1 2010 for individuals, companies, and interactive agencies.

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About a year ago I fired Internet Explorer as my primary browser. Why? Because it crashed on me constantly and took forever at times to transition from one site to another. I’ve found the Firefox browser much more user friendly, especially given the number of plugins that have been developed for the browser.

The ability to customize Firefox with these plug-in extensions is what makes this open-source browser so special. However, there are so many available options for plugins, it’s tough to know what’s worth installing and what’s will be a complete waste of your time.

There are lists of Firefox plugins that have been created citing the best extensions for web developers or for a better YouTube experience. However, I wanted to create an everyday list of my best choices just for the ordinary online business owner.

Out of these, here are my top 10 Firefox extensions:

1. Adblock Plus. If you have ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on a site that often take longer to download than everything else on the page, install Adblock Plus and get rid of them. Right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu, and the banner won’t be downloaded again.
2. Colorful Tabs. This simple add-on that makes a strong colorful appeal. It sets each tab to a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface. After a long day of research when you have lots of browser windows open, this makes online page viewing easier on the eyes.
3. ColorZilla. ColorZilla puts an eyedropper icon in your status bar. Click it and you’ll get a crosshair cursor. As you run this over a Web page, the RGB values of the pixel under the crosshair will display in the status bar, both as three separate values and as a hex value (e.g., R:255, G:255, B:255 | #FFFFFF). I use this all the time if I’m trying to match colors; i.e. a font color to an the primary background on an image, for example.
4. GMail Manager. This Gmail notifier is great if you have multiple Gmail accounts. It allows you to receive new mail notifications along with viewing account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.
5. MeasureIt. After installing this extension, you’ll have a small ruler icon in your left side of your status bar. When you click on it, your browser window will fade out a little, and you’ll have a crosshair cursor. Drag the cursor over a section of the screen that you want to measure. Next to the box is its height and width, measured in pixels. I use this all the time when trying to measure the size of images. When you’re finished, just hit the Escape key to turn it off and return normal viewing to the page.
6. Quirk Search Status. Search Status allows you to see how any web site you visit is performing. When you land on a page, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Compete.com ranking, SEOmoz Linkscape mozRank, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and backward links from Google, Yahoo! and MSN. This combined search-related information means you can view not only the link importance of a site (according to Google and Linkscape), but also its traffic importance (according to Alexa and Compete), so providing a balanced view of site efficacy. I use this all the time to determine whether a site has enough traffic to warrant accepting a joint venture opportunity.
7. Scrapbook. ScrapBook helps you to save Web pages and easily manage your saved collections. Major features are: saving web pages or snippets of a page, saving a web site, organize the collection in the same way you do bookmarks, full text search and quick filtering search of the collection, and editing of your collected pages.
8. Session Manager. Session Manager helps you manage your Firefox tabs. If you visit the same sites every day, all you need do is open all the sites in separate tabs and/or windows, and then use Session Manager to save the session with a distinct name. Then, you simply go to Tools > Session Manager, pick your session, and all the windows and tabs open up just as you saved them. And, Session Manager tracks your sessions as you surf, and if Firefox (or your system) crashes, you can recover the selection of tabs you had open when it crashed.
9. Tabs Open Relative. Tabs Open Relative makes all new tabs open to the right of the current tab, rather than at the far right of the tab bar. This reduced a huge annoyance I had with how the Firefox browser worked.
10. XMarks, XMarks (formerly Foxmarks)provides seamless bookmark synchronization between your computers and browsers via their synchronization server. Your bookmark (and optionally password) data is securely stored and backed up on our servers and is available online, as well. After you install the add-on, click on the notification to set up Xmarks and start backing up and synchronizing your bookmarks. Install Xmarks on each computer you use, and it seamlessly integrates with your web browser and keeps your bookmarks safely backed up and in sync across all of your computers. Secure Password Sync is an optional Xmarks feature.

Note: To locate these, search for the plug-in extensions here, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7

If you don’t currently use Firefox as your browser, perhaps this list will convince you to give it a try. I have liked my experience so much with Firefox that I’ll never use any other browser.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%Top 10 Firefox Browser Plugins%%

Top 10 Firefox Browser Plugins

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We’ve been following NACA’s Save the Dream Tour this year. The first three cities were featured in a case study at SES San Jose 2009 during the How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community session as well as at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum during the What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video session.

Since then, NACA has held Save the Dream events in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas — and is currently in the middle of an event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, which will run through Tuesday, October 20.

NACA’s Save the Dream has been an incredible success with over 315,000 participants at the first seven cities, with many thousands having their mortgage restructured with interest rates permanently reduced to as low as 2%. Although there has been some skepticism about how they can do this, NACA has legally binding agreements with all the major lenders/servicers to achieve this.

I spent Friday and Saturday at the Cow Palace to see the event for myself. And I’ve decided to feature an update of their case study at SES Chicago 2009.

To date, NACA has issued 15 optimized press releases about NACA Save the Dream events in eight cities. These press releases have 2,120,603 headline impressions and 32,596 full page reads, according to PRWeb.

The documentary video about NACA’s Save the Dream tour has only 2,920 views. But it has helped to generate coverage more than 29 stories on local TV stations.

NACA’s campaign includes press release optimization, YouTube video, blog outreach, media relations, and Twitter marketing. Through the end of September, it had generated 363 posts, 300 tweets, 21 mainstream news stories, and 7 YouTube videos.

To get a sense of what these stories are saying, read: “The American Dream is not lost- NACA stages Save The Dream Events” by Clifford Wright in the LA Baptist Examiner. Or read “Thousands at Cow Palace seeking mortgage help” by Carolyn Said of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bruce Marks, NACA’s founder and CEO, was profiled by ABC News on Nightline Sept. 5, 2009. And CBS Evening News with Katie Couric featured a story by Anthony Mason entitled, “Homeowner Hero’s War on Banks,” on Friday evening, Oct. 16, 2009.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Subtitled, “The American Spirit: One Man’s Crusade to Help Others Restructure Loans,” Mason’s story says, “With at least one in every 136 homes at risk of foreclosure, one man has persuaded some mortgage holders to renegotiate with borrowers.”

According to Compete, there were 724,305 unique visitors to NACA.com in July, August and September 2009, more than double the 361,764 unique visitors to the site in April, May and June 2009, and almost triple the 270,486 unique visitors to NACA.com in July, August and September 2008.

Oh, and all those visitors arrived before the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric ran it’s story last Friday. And if the five-day San Francisco event attracts 60,000 participants, which is how many the five-day Atlanta event did, then NACA’s 8-city Save the Dream Tour will have attracted 375,000 participants.

That’s an amazing story for a national non-profit community advocacy and homeownership organization. I’m just grateful that they’re letting me help them tell it.

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“Pay-per-click,” by far the most popular form of online advertising, recently came under fire as charges of rampant “click fraud” gather steam on the Web.

Google and Yahoo! earn the majority of their money through sales of advertising to tens-of-thousands of online merchants, companies, and professional.

In fact, some estimate that 99% of all Google’s revenue comes from advertising sales. Unfortunately, allegations of click fraud may well rain on Google’s otherwise sunny parade and cause a whole scale revamping of current online advertising practices.

Pay-per-click advertising does exactly what it sounds: advertisers pay for each click on their ad, usually mixed in among search engine results or displayed on relevant websites.

“Click fraud” occurs when, for whatever reason, an ad gets clicked by someone or something (usually an automated “bot” that simulates clicks) with no intention of ever buying anything from the advertiser.

The sole intention of click fraud is to simply drain an advertiser’s budget and leave them with nothing to show but an empty wallet.

Who commits click fraud?

Usually an unscrupulous competitor who wants to break a rival’s bank, online “vandals” who get their kicks causing other people grief, or search engine advertising affiliates who want to earn fat commissions by racking up piles of bogus clicks.

Regardless of who does it or why, click fraud appears to be a growing problem search engines hope stays under their advertising clients’ radar.

This problem isn’t exactly news to the search engine giants.

In fact, on page 60 of their 3rd quarter Report for 2004, Google admits that they have “regularly refunded revenue” to advertisers that was “attributed to click-through fraud.”

Google further states that if they don’t find a way to deal with this problem “these types of fraudulent activities could hurt our brand.”

Bottom line for Google and Yahoo! (which owns Overture, the Web’s largest pay-per-click search engine): as word of click fraud spreads across the Web, they must act quickly to calm the nerves of advertisers who could well abandon them over doubts about the veracity of their advertising charges.

The search engines all claim to carry measures that identify and detect click fraud, but details about how they do it and to what extent remain sketchy.

They claim revealing details about security would compromise their efforts and give the perpetrators a leg up on circumventing their defenses.

This sounds good, but affords little comfort to advertisers who feel caught between losing out on their best traffic sources and paying for advertising that won’t result in revenue.

One way to protect your business against click fraud is to closely monitor your website statistics.

Look for an unusually high number or regular pattern of clicks from the same IP address.

If you need help, enlist the aid of your hosting provider to aid you in spotting suspicious trends in your website traffic.

Also, a number of services have sprung up online to help advertisers spot and quickly analyze and compile the data necessary to effectively dispute fraudulent click charges with the search engines.

Click Here => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%Advertising “Click Fraud” Rampant Online?%%

Advertising “Click Fraud” Rampant Online?

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By Daniel Emery
BBC Technology reporter

A video-game that boasts rap artist Jay-Z amongst its advisors is hoping to capitalise on the popularity of music titles despite poor sales forecasts.

DJ Hero will be launched in the UK on Thursday and allows players to emulate their music-mixing idols.

Its publishers hope it will emulate the success of Guitar Hero, the rock-based game that let users jam along to tracks using a guitar-shaped controller.

However, games analysts believe the game will not sell as well as expected.

"We remain very cautious about the title’s prospects at launch," Doug Creutz at analysts Cowen and Company said in a report.

"A survey of online retailers indicates a demand profile that is well below what we would have expected to see just a few days before launch for a title that was destined to be a big (or even modest) hit."

The company has reduced its US sales estimates for the fourth quarter of the year from 1.6 million to 600,000 and its first year estimate from 2.5 million to 950,000.

"We still believe that DJ Hero will be an important part of Activision Blizzards music franchise strategy, but we think it may take a few versions of the game for it to reach its full market potential," he wrote.

‘Bonus tunes’

DJ Hero, which is developed by British studio FreeStyleGames, was announced in January 2009 and made its first major public debut at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. It is already available in North America but goes on sale in the UK on Friday.

Players use a plastic turntable, three button controller, effects dial, and cross fader to mix over 100 tracks, triggered by on-screen prompts.

Rap artists Jay-Z and Eminem, who acted as advisors during the games development, will also offer a track as downloadable content for the game.

There are also 10 bonus tracks that can be played with the Guitar Hero controller and mixed alongside DJ Hero tracks, resulting in a hybrid song that is both rock-riff and scratch.

Johnny Minkley, editor of Eurogamer TV, said that he had been trying the game out for over a week and, so far, was hooked.

"I’ve played guitar most of my life, so playing Guitar Hero didn’t feel odd and I found that having played the real thing helped.

"However, I have never used a set of decks in my life, so I went into this game blind but it turned out to be really fun and it’s got me wanting to try out the real thing."

There are some big differences from other music games, beyond the obvious turntable controller. While other games have you jamming along to existing tracks, all the music on DJ Hero was custom made for the game.

"The game plays a very clever trick, in that you think you are changing the music, even though it is really a pre programmed soundtrack," said Mr Minkley.

There are no shortage of music games on the market.

In addition to new titles, there have been numerous add-ons to existing games, such as Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

Mr Minkley said that users were getting a little wary of the sheer volume titles available, but that DJ Hero was different enough to set it apart from the pack.

"There has been a lot of cynicism towards this title, but having played it, it feels genuinely fresh," said Mr Minkley.

However, the price of the game may put some users off.

DJ Hero has an recommended price of £109, although there are reports that retailers are reducing this to below £100. Guitar-based titles have retailed from between £49 and £75,

The concept of karaoke-style games, where players strum, sing, and drum along to musical tracks has grown into a multi-million pound industry following the launch of the first Guitar Hero by US developer Harmonix in November 2005.

Following a split with publisher Activision, Harmonix went on to launch the rival series Rock Band. The latest instalment – Beatles Rock Band – was released earlier this year.</p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Google has provided additional information to the FCC’s regarding Google Voice. You might remember that Google already responded to FCC’s questions about Google Voice and why a mobile app for it was rejected for the iPhone.

This time, Google Voice is responding to concerns raised by AT&T about restricting calls to select area codes, something telecommunications carriers are prohibited by law from doing.

In the most recent letter to the FCC, Google said they’re not a telecommunications carrier because their service is not open to the public and it’s free. Indeed, Google Voice is available by invitation only and is free – for the most part. Still, the public can request Google Voice invitations and they must pay for international calls. Google says, though, that international calls only make up 4% of calls placed through Google Voice.

Instead, Google calls itself an information provider:

Google Voice constitutes an “information service” under the federal Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 153(20), because it offers users “a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, [and] transforming” information of the user’s choosing. The Google Voice number is a personal number for managing the user’s connectivity in one place, and it is not associated with an underlying telephone access service.

Google maintains that Voice as a web-based application, but stresses it’s not VOIP.

Google Voice is a Web-based software application. It is a single, integrated unified messaging and call management offering that is completely distinct from the user’s existing telephone access lines/services.

Google’s strongest argument is that you can’t simply sign up to Voice as a telecommunications provider. Instead, Google Voice is used to manage the telecommunications services you’re already signed up to.

Importantly, prospective users of Google Voice must subscribe to one or more traditional telecommunications services to be eligible to create a Google Voice account. The Google Voice system will require that a unique US telephone number be verified before an account will become active.

What truly looks to be the problem is that Google Voice is a combination of information and telecommunications services, which doesn’t fit existing (and now outdated) descriptions of providers as set by the FCC and Congress. Ironically, both AT&T and Google probably have similar goals here: to bring government regulation up to date with how technology has progressed.

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A search engine optimization company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet Marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine’s index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most important search engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company’s track record of results. However, don’t take the company’s word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen NetRatings page at Search Engine Watch.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes” will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company’s results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should always keep at it in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an ongoing process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record—and that risk is your money! Don’t take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember—even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both search engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How To Select A Search Engine Optimization Company

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During the past seven weeks, I’ve shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are “eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three.”

This week, I’ll share an eighth great reason — and it isn’t “nine ladies dancing.”

You should attend these events for “nine trainers training.”

As I mentioned back in September, training is one of the three key trends. If you type “SEO training” into Google Insights for Search, you’ll see that web search interest has grown steadily since 2004 — and is forecast to continue growing in 2010. So, it’s not surprising that more time is being added to the schedules of search engine conferences for training workshops.

But I often wonder if “in-depth training” is the right term for the “radical reorientation” that takes place in these intensive workshops. The small class setting ensures participants that their instructor is accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions of “why” as well as “how.”

As Columbus discovered, training the crews of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria how to sail west was a relatively straightforward task. The real challenge was convincing Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand that they wouldn’t fall off the edge of the world.

Fortunately, the instructors of the SES training workshops are experts who know how to handle both ambidextrously.

So, what can you learn by participating in one of these training workshops?

SES Berlin offers a “Workshopsprogramm” on 23 November, the day before the “kongress.” The program includes:
• Link Building 2009 Workshop, which will be taught by Christoph Cemper, General Manager, and Melanie Arko, Project Manager CEMPER.COM.
• Web Analytics Workshop: Data Into Action, which will be taught by Timo Aden, Gründer und Geschäftsführer, Trakken GmbH.
• Best Practices der Suchmaschinenwerbung, which will be taught by Oliver Zenglein, Head of Online Marketing, be2.

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 offers SEM training on December 10, the day after the conference. The half-day workshops include:
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop, which will be taught by Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing Interactive.
• Landing Page Testing Hands On: Developing Your Action Plan, which will be taught by Tim Ash, SiteTuners.
• Advanced Keyword Research, which will be taught by Ron Jones, Symetri Internet Marketing.
• Social Media and Your Business, which will be taught by Sage Lewis, SageRock.com.

On December 11, SES Chicago 2009 offers partnered training. The full-day workshops include:
• Search Engine Optimization Training, which will be taught by Bruce Clay, Bruce Clay, Inc.
• Integrating Search Across All Online Marketing Efforts, which will be taught by Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit; Ray “Catfish” Comstock, Senior Search Strategist, BusinessOnLine; Paul Sherman, President Emeritas, Usability Professionals Organization (OMI Professor); Jennifer Wessenmeyer, VP Analytics, Stratigent; Debbie Qaqish, Partner, Pedowitz Group (OMI professor); and Kevin Espinosa, Director eMarketing, Caterpillar.

Next week, we’ll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing “nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three.”

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