On Tuesday May 6th, Search Engine Strategies Training Workshops will be held in Denver, Colorado. This is a unique opportunity for businesses and marketers in and around the Rocky Mountain region to take part in focused learning on one or two topics critical to Search Engine Marketing today.

I’ll be teaching a half day course entitled Local Search Engine Marketing 101. While we’ll begin with the basics of Local Search Engine marketing and optimization, the session will go far beyond that in scope. By the time students walk away with their 50 page ‘how-to” reference manual on Local Search, they’ll be completely prepared to promote themselves or others online.

A student who attended A Crash Course in Local Search at SES in New York City stated,

” …I was able to jump to the very number one spot for our main keywords in the south jersey/philadelphia area. We are now listed ahead of the huge philly firms for zero dollars…..needless to say my boss is thrilled” Amber W.

Other Workshops will be Search Engine Optimization taught by Shari Thurlow, Advanced Keyword Research by Ron Jones and How to Effectively Use Social Media for Search Marketing Campaigns by Liana Evans.

Those of us who live and work away from the coasts, often bemoan how all the good stuff takes place somewhere else. Well, this time, it’s coming right to us! Take advantage of it and register today.

This weekend, I noticed a new feature on Google Maps-Terrain! While this is not at all earthshaking, it is just one more little improvement my favorite Search Engine has made to make their product better.

Imagine being able to choose a street view, a traditional map view, a satellite view and a terrain view with contour lines all from one place? Well, now we can toggle back and forth between all these views within Google Maps to put things into better context and perspective to make more sense of them. In fact, in some places, you can see yet another view - Traffic.

There’s been a lot of shifting around in the Google Search Engine Results Pages for the past few days. Matt Cutts has confirmed that an update is rolling through. The SEO community is dubbing it “Dewey”.

This means you may see a webpage ranking in one place one minute and in another the next. It’s often due to different data centers showing different results. Don’t panic. Don’t make any changes. Just hold tight until the dust settles.

It has recently come to our attention that a scam website is sending out emails to some clients asking them to update their Google AdWords account information. This is a scam. All Blizzard clients who have pay per clicks that are maintained by Blizzard will have any information updates performed by us through their login dashboard. Anyone sending emails asking you for sensitive information most likely isn’t on the up-and-up.

Here is an image of the contents of the email:

The Domain that this link points to is a Chinese domain - adwords.google.com.treoo.cn

Here is a snap of the warning you come upon if you click on the link in the email above:

This warning came up in the Firefox browser - and might not happen every time. So to be safe, never follow the URL in ANY email asking you to login and “update information.” Instead type in the URL you’ve been given previously, use login information used prior to receiving the email and check for the same information within the dashboard of the platform.

If you receive an email from Google AdWords and are unsure if it needs to be addressed, go ahead and forward it to your Blizzard Account representative - we’re all happy to help out!

AOL and Citysearch have partnered up to provide Citysearch content, user generated reviews and local ads for the AOL websites. This includes not just AOL, but also MapQuest, CityGuide and AOL Local Search.

So, if you are an AOL aficionado, you’ll see more local content and if you’re a Citysearch advertiser, you’ll have AOL users seeing your ads across their network. That’s pretty sweet for everyone involved.

There’s some good news about Google news this month. As of a week ago, searchers can go to Google News, enter a city name or zip code and receive news pertaining to that location.

Google considers the source of the news to determine relevance. For example, they know that the Aspen Times is a source of news for the Aspen area and that HeraldNet.Com is the online news site for the Everett, Washington area. In addition, Google says:

“We’re not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located. “

Right now, the pickin’s are really slim for small towns and rural areas, but the reality is there’s often not much news associated with those places. There are days I never get past the headlines of our daily newspaper here in Glenwood Springs, Colorado because there’s nothing of interest to draw me in. However, when you live in a small town, no interesting news can be a very good thing.

The Local News results definitely need tweaking. A search for Aspen brought up and article about Aspen Ranch, which is in Loa, Utah and another about a company called Aspen Tech and their Nasdaq problems. Neither of these has the tiniest bit of relevance to Aspen Local News. From what I’ve seen, you can generally expect to get more relevant results when you put in a city name rather than a zipcode.

Fortunately, Google often releases beta versions of their search products and then rapidly improves upon them. I think we can expect that with this one, as well.
To keep up with the latest at Google News, visit the Official Google News Blog and subscribe to their RSS feed.

Glenwood Springs, in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, is Blizzard Internet Marketing’s hometown. This is where we live and work and play. Have you ever wondered where the heck Glenwood Springs is? Or why anyone would want to live there? Believe it or not, it’s not quite as small or out of the way as you may think.

Last week, Glenwood Springs made the big city news as a featured destination in the New York Times Travel Escapes section. The article, by travel writer Helen Olsson, tells the rather interesting history of our town. (It was originally named Defiance, if that gives you any clues to our hometown character.) Then, she goes on to write about all the outdoor fun we have in every season and describes some of the unique attractions in our area.

Legend has it that the Ute Indians, the original Glenwoodies, placed a curse on our valley and that anyone who visits will not be able to leave. I arrived here on a temporary job assignment nearly 30 years ago. I guess the curse worked!