… Your choice can be the difference between a maximum tax refund and a non optimal refund; a fast refund versus a wait of weeks to months.

I know that sounds a bit severe, so bear with me – but if you are an SEO, and you work as a sole proprietor or own [...]

Thanks for all the query tweets and general interest in my ‘moving on’. In a nutshell, I effectively left Epiar and all the great people there today (December 30th).
 
I can honestly say that working at Epiar has been the highlight of my career so far. It’s pretty darn hard to find a dedicated multi-service you [...]

 
I got a call a few weeks ago from an exceptionally talented woman I used to work with at a pretty big agency. She is a super hot account manager, and she had been getting some queries from clients through her team indicating interest in SEM services. She called me.
 
The gist of the call was [...]

There’s an old joke Economists find highly amusing:
 

‘A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression is when you lose your job’

It ain’t sounding so funny these days…
 
But wait. It’s not that bad for search marketers, depending on how the industry deals with it as a whole, and how independent practitioners [...]

If you have ever tried to explain what you do as an SEO to young children you may appreciate this post.
 
Introducing the cast:
 

5 year old son – C1
5 year old daughter – C2 (Yes, they’re twins. No, I’m not a rabbit)
7 year old son – C3 (Just started Grade 2)
Me – err… Me

 
 
C3 – Mom, [...]

SEO continues to be called a ‘waste of time’, ‘evil’, a ‘waste of money’ and worse all over the net, and by numerous different sites. I know I’m not the only SEO proponent banging my head against the proverbial wall.
 
Heck, if SEO is such a waste of time, perhaps the purveyors of these gems of [...]

There is so much misunderstanding of these two terms, how they relate to each other, and which to target. I’m going to try to diffuse that dichotomy. 
 
It’s not a case of the chicken-before-the-egg or vice versa. They are two completely different disciplines, though each can benefit from the other much as SEO and paid search [...]

We have notified & refunded our attendees, and chatted with the speakers. Now we can let everyone else know:
The SEM Canada Conference has been postponed until October of next year for the following reasons:
1. We are in final talks with a new corporate sponsor who will enable us to really make the SEM Canada series [...]

Toronto SES was superb!
This post is a bit of ramble but it does contain my picks on:
• Most amusing event
• Most embarrassing comment
• Best session (of course this is not in any way biased)
• COOLEST people I met!
Most Amusing Pick
I realize this is not related to the conference directly, but I was in Toronto, [...]

This year has already resulted in numerous shifts in the search marketing space as we know it:
Trends From an Investors Perspective

Microsoft bid for Yahoo!, then withdrew the offer and Yahoo!’s shares dropped nearly 20%
Google and Yahoo! are still skirting around a search advertising partnership
Ask withdrew from main stream search to focus on women searchers
Google’s search [...]