Search Marketing Trainer

Like any honorable professional, I have a battery of resources that keep me informed about the industry and tell me stuff I don't know on a regular basis. My resources are now your resources. Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and learn a little something.

From the Horse's Mouth
Did you know that most of the search engines maintain their own blog (or blogs) to keep advertisers informed about new developments, features and other enlightening issues? Well, they do. In Google's case, this is often the best way to get the scoop on new product releases and other good stuff they're constantly rolling out their customers (customers=advertisers).

• Inside Adwords Blog - This is Google's official Adwords blog. Here's where you'll learn the rules, then learn them again when Google changes them, then again when they change them back.
• Adwords Agency Blog - Aimed at agencies, this blog contains more advanced tips and techniques about managing Adwords from a third-party perspective. Some of the info isn't relevant to smaller advertisers, but some of the tips are really interesting, like this post about how to optimize a Google Mobile campaign.
• Google Retail Blog - If you're promoting your e-commerce site via Google, then you need to subscribe to this blog. It's completely focused on retail and is packed with stats, insights and tips on how to get the most out of your Adwords campaign if you're an online retailer. If knowledge is power, then this blog is the path to world domination.
• Google Official Website Optimizer Blog - This is a blog dedicated to all things related to Google's Website Optimizer, a free tool that Google offers advertisers to help with conversion optimization.
• Yahoo Search Marketing Blog. Yep, Yahoo has a blog too. This is focused on the paid search side of things. Enjoy.
• Yahoo Search Blog - This is focused more on the organic side of Yahoo's search results as well as business news and updates on Yahoo in general. Yahoo just announced a partnership with Twitter, for example.
• Microsoft Adcenter (Bing) Blog- Like everything else that Microsoft does, this blog seems overly complicated and difficult to navigate. It's still worth checking out for the two of you who are advertising on Bing (ha ha - I joke).

Search Marketing News

Yahoo's blog provides an excellent list of external search engine news resources. In a pinch, I recommend you check out their blog roll. Here are the ones I read regularly.

• Search Engine Land is Danny Sullivan's site. He's got multiple people contributing to the site and it's updated multiple times per day, thus the information overload can be fierce. Still, the content is deep and the topics vast. This is the place to go if you're searching for something specific regarding search marketing (SEO, PPC and industry news) and/or need some expert advice.
• Search Marketing Standard is more of an e-zine than a blog. They even have a real magazine which they distribute proliferously at search marketing conferences. I find the articles on the site to be aimed more at beginners than intermediate or expert search marketers, so it's perfect if you're just starting out. They also provide lots of info on the latest search marketing events and conferences.
• Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) is one of the few industry organizations that represent both individual and organizational search marketers. There is a lot of free info for non SEMPO members including white papers and case studies - just check out the resource library in the SEMPO Learning Center.

(free) Tools

• Google’s Keyword Tool: Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas.
• Google Traffic Estimator: Get quick traffic estimates for new keywords without adding them to an account or using the AdWords sign-up wizard.
• Google Trends: Track The Search Terms That People Are Searching For, and perform competitive research.
• Adwords Editor: is a free application for managing your Adwords campaigns. Use it to download your account, update your campaigns with powerful editing tools, then upload your changes to AdWords.
• Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop is Yahoo's version of the Adwords Editor and it's brand spanking new. It makes updating and optimizing your Yahoo campaigns much simpler.