In early 2009 I was sitting at a lunch table at the SMX West conference, when I met this really smart guy named George Michie. I’d heard about the PPC expertise of The Rimm-Kaufman Group, of course, but didn’t know any of the principal players. George and I hit it off pretty much instantly. We shared many of the same perspectives on search, on agencies, on the respective challenges of SEO and PPC, and on industry pricing models. Since then, we’ve stayed in touch regularly online.

George was kind enough to conduct an interview with me recently on the RKG Blog, and I wanted to return the favor. Please find our dialogue below.

6 PPC Questions for George

At what point …

As a serial entrepreneur with a high level of risk tolerance (and severe ADD), I never thought I would write a post like this. I’m typically more Ready - Fire - Aim. But these are not typical times.

If you’re reading this you’re probably engaged in some type of internet business, perhaps ecommerce, perhaps online marketing, perhaps technology. If so, you are among some of the most fortunate people in the United States as internet business is one of the few bright spots in today’s economy. Report after report speak to the growth of internet related endeavors, while most of the economy is deep in the throes of recession.

The Wire
The perimeter of military outposts is called “the wire.” Going off …

Black Swans, Buggies, Books & Shoes, VC’s,
A Threat to Google?, AIPDA’s

Have you correctly defined what business your company is in? Do you define your company by the products you offer or by the needs you meet for your customers? Perhaps the most critical thing you can do when building a company is to properly identify your mission.

This becomes of critical importance when there is rapid and drastic change. In his book “The Black Swan”, Nassim Taleb discusses uncertainty and how dramatic and highly impactful events not only will happen - they are happening more often. As improvements in technology and especially communications gallop forward at an ever increasing rate, one of the effects is that geography, …

2009 has been a big year for social media. Many of the sites have proven, in some eyes, that they can stick around and social media won’t just be the “fanny pack” fad of the industry. Although, those were pretty cool… A purse that buckles around the waste and wait, guys can sport it too? Radical. Well, come 1997 this was pretty much obsolete. Not so much the case for social media.

Social media marketing isn’t a fad – it’s becoming an important and integral part of online marketing and a ship your business should set sail on. By rolling …

Little things matter. Star Wars Kid & luck. 4-year-old brains. Butterflies & tornadoes. Irrelevant fractals.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
- Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”

It’s indisputable that social media has enabled effective viral marketing. There has never been greater opportunity to generate positive word of mouth about your product or service. Done properly, some level of success is more or less guaranteed. Where things get a little less certain is when the goal is to develop a viral promotion that is intended to become a huge hit - one that multiplies geometrically across …

Writing with SEO in mind isn’t natural for a lot of us, but once you get the “formula” down and understand where you can influence SEO with keywords on the page, it should be standard practice for anyone working within pages of a site. It’s all about emphasizing relevance for the theme of the page, and the keywords you’re targeting.

Before you begin writing a blog post, article, or content for any page of a website, consider some of the key terms that relate to the topic you wish to write about. Put yourself in the shoes of someone searching for information on this topic. What would they search for? Then, incorporate your keyword strategy into the following key SEO …

Just a quick post outlining a few things I’ve been doing. If I can’t promote myself before the conferences and such, I might as well promote myself afterwards, right? I’ll figure this marketing thang out someday.

Other than writing posts about the serious dangers of rel=canonical, I’ve been traveling a bit. Working a lot - with some great clients I might add. My normal routine takes me to Henderson, Nevada every couple of weeks to work with the search team at Zappos. Between those visits I usually hit several conferences a year, including SMX East and West and Advanced, SES, Pubcon, and SearchFest - and we have even more planned for 2010.

Search + Social Conference in Bend

AudetteMedia sponsored the …

It’s been several months since the link canonical tag was announced, and it’s being used fairly liberally out in the wild. It’s patently clear to us that this tag is quite powerful and effective, and the consequences of its misuse very serious. It’s being misused a lot (not a surprise). We’re seeing a ton of sites with poor rel=canonical implementation. The end result: it’s causing havoc.

Yes, rel=canonical is breaking websites. I’ll share a few anecdotes in this post that show just how bad it can be.

Why Link Canonical is Dangerous

Part of the problem with rel=canonical is that it’s extremely easy to implement. Just throw a meta tag into the head of a page and you’re good. That very ease belies …

As I outlined today in my column at SearchEngineLand, we’re seeing Google Product Search send a lot of traffic and sales this year. I (dramatically) wrote that in some ways it represents the new battleground for competitive SEO… and I think it does. Google obviously wants to push Product Search and start cutting marketshare from the big CSE players.

The other tip in my article is to get Yahoo! paid inclusion while you still can, because it’s going bye bye on January 1.

My monthly article at SearchEngineLand was published this week: Small & Nimble Trumps Big & Slow in SEO. Basic premise: small SEO shops are able to be more nimble and flexible than large, slow-moving agencies. That translates to a greater ROI in free search marketing campaigns. (I’m definining ‘large’ as over 150 people on staff.)

Would love to hear your thoughts.