FAST Forward '09

I will be presenting a case study on our client AutoTrader.com at the FAST Forward '09 conference in Las Vegas next Tuesday, February 10th. The topic of my presentation is how search and analytics data can inform site design and user experience. AutoTrader.com has created new pages on their site with two purposes in mind. First, they want to improve their SEO rankings. Second, they want to improve the user experience. Post-search users, who have already told Google what they want, should not be taken to the home page. Once we know what a user is searching for, we can provide them with a better page that attempts to guess their next steps using analytics data from Omniture. SEO is not about rankings; it's about dollars. This is also a CFO-friendly project because AutoTrader.com did not have to invest in additional content. Rather they're rendering existing content in a new way that provides incremental benefits simultaneously to both the site and to users.

Meet Benjamin Rudolph

Hello, Blogosphere! My name is Benjamin Rudolph, and this is my first post on the blog that bears my name. I plan to discuss search marketing-related issues. I am an Interactive Media Buyer at Search Discovery, an interactive ad agency based in Atlanta that specializes in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO). Prior to joining Search Discovery, I spent four years at Comcast, most recently managing their search partnership with Google. My goal is to keep this blog up to date, commenting on the latest search news and providing analysis. If you'd like to meet me in person, I will be speaking at the FASTforward Summit in Boston on June 19th. I'll be discussing Site Search Strategies for Search Engine Optimization. I appreciate your readership in advance, and I look forward to making this a useful source of news, commentary, and information.