by Dev Basu on June 15, 2010
I just published the web’s most in-depth review of Market Samurai. Not like other crappy and thin affiliate sites, but rather a full fledged review, complete with screenshots, module functionality and a break down of each and every valuable feature available in Market Samurai.
If you’re at all interest in any of the reasons I’ve included from the excerpt below, go read my Market Samurai Review. Then go ahead and try it out for free, no credit card required.
Why I Bought Market Samurai (And Why You Should At least Try it Too)
I’ve used many keyword tools and niche research tools over the years include SEO Elite, Wordtracker, Wordze and Trellian but nothing compares to Market Samurai. As an advanced search marketer my Market Samurai offers a couple of research modules that are all integrated very well. The one’s my staff and I use the most include the  Keyword Research, SEO Competition, Find Content, and Promotion modules.
There’s a couple of very good (real world, no hype) reasons you should at least try Market Samurai:
- The Trial is utterly and completely FREE. No credit card required and no auto-billing to deal with.
- If you don’t save at least 3-5 hours per project by using Market Samurai then you’re not using it right.
- Following up on my last point, Market Samurai has a Dojo where they have full-length video tutorials for each of their modules including how to use them to find easy niches and low competition keywords.
- Even if you choose to buy, any half decent internet marketer should be able to make their money back by having their first affiliate/client site ranked and attracting relevant traffic.
With each review I try to find a few short comings but I’m afraid I’m a pretty happy camper with what Market Samurai offers. Â With the launch of the Adwords (PPC Spy like) module around the corner and another secret module tentatively being launched in the very near future, I was happy I locked in the lower price when I could.
by Dev Basu on June 10, 2010
SES Toronto 2010 kicked off today with a brand new venue at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto amongst a packed crowd of eager attendees. I was happy to see higher attendance than last year’s conference, and high points of day 1 included meeting old friends, making new ones, and enjoying some very high quality panels.
Managing a Global SEO Campaign
Speakers:
Ian McAnerin, CEO, McAnerin Networks Inc.
Crispin Sheridan, SES Advisory Board & Sr Director of Search Marketing Strategy, SAP
Michael Bonfils, International Managing Director, SEM International
This is a topic close to my heart, and was something I was majorly involved in as an in-house SEO in the past. Highlights of the session included Ian’s tips on localizing content rather than translating it, Crispin’s insider case study of SAP’s global SEO challenges, and Michael’s humorous presentation on Tom Whorton’s ( a play on Canada’s favourite coffee chain – Tim Hortons).
Top tips from Ian included:
- Choose to have multi-national, multi-lingual campaigns rather than one lazy global SEO/SEM campaign.
- Plan centrally, synchronise globally, execute locally i.e Have a central vision, a global strategy, and local execution.
- Sell in mature markets, brand in emerging markets.
- When it comes to SEO: Use CCTLDs, country specific hosting, localized content that is tailored for each audience, and appropriate copy indicating multi-lingual sites versus multi-lingual pages.
Top tips from Crispin included:
Crispin talked about the amazingly complex website eco-system that he manages as part of SAP’s global SEO strategy. SAP is one of the largest software companies in the world, and with its massive growth Crispin indicated that he has to deal with websites that have grown organically over time and are not alike in design, content, language, or site architecture.
Top tips from Crispin included:
- Use the canonical tag to distinguish authoritative content from duplicate content. In SAP’s case, the canonical tag is placed on its Global English site rather than its US based site as the global site has more content and converts better in this case.
- Use country flagging in webmaster tools.
- Run keyword cluster research to identify keywords that are currently ranking with low search volume, and then modify pages containing each cluster to more have terms with more search volume.
Top tips from Michael Bonfils:
Michael offers up a case study of the fictitious Tom Whortons company who is currently planning on expanding internationally after having a successful e-commerce presence selling coffee beans in North America.
Key problems of a haphazard global search strategy included:
- Picking markets for expansion based on where existing is coming from via analytics data.
- No regard for localization of content displayed by the use of automatic translation tools which generated sub-par translations.
- Lack of payment options for a global audience by only restricting payments to credit cards.
Top tips from Michael included:
- Figure out the right target markets – Survey local competition, local keyword research, in addition to web analytics research.
- Get the right localization and translation strategy – Make a local language speaker born and raised in the target country work with a keyword research specialist.
- Follow SEO Best Practices – Use CCTLDs, country specific hosting, avoid duplicate content.
For more coverage on SES Toronto Day 1, click here to jump to the Powered by Search blog.
