1) SEO Marketing is increasingly sophisticated, but people are still making very basic mistakes. What is the simplest piece of advice you can give



Hire an expert consultant! Actually, the fundamentals that were true 5 years ago are still true today. Create a well structured site that is easy for search engines to crawl, add fresh, themed content on an ongoing basis and never stop attracting incoming links from relevant resources. Think of search engine optimization as a long term commitment and don't get distracted by short term tricks.

2) Google is so dominant - do you see that continuing and what is the effect of their dominance on the industry?

Google will continue to dominate for some time I think, especially in the U.S.. Google's percentage of mind share is really unmatched in the search industry. However, Yahoo certainly has a loyal following and many more registered users so I think they will continue to do very well as a search portal. Ask.com has made , particularly with blog search but I don't think they will ever dominate in the near future. However, Ask will always attract an enthusiastic following.

The effect of Google's dominance so far has been the creation of a wide variety of very useful tools and services for users. I do wonder if there may come a time where Google will become too big and pervasive. Hopefully the competition can avoid that happening as the more quality search options there are, the better it is for users and the marketplace.

3) Blog entries may be removed from main search engine listings and only listed in blog searches. Firstly, do you think this could work in practice and is it a good idea?

Most consumers don't know the difference between a blog and a web site. In fact, an increasing number of companies are using blog software as their web site content management system. Therefore, I think removing blog entries entirely from search results will reduce the quality of user experience to some degree. At the same time, there is a big problem with . Particularly with blogs that are automatically created by the thousands for the purpose of generating AdSense revenue. Removing those types of blogs from regular search results and only listing them in a blog search engine may improve search results quality, but it does not solve the problem of blog spam.

I like what Ask.com is doing with their new blog and feed search service. Blog search is offered as an option right along with news, local and image search. That way the searcher can use the same interface for search. Rather than trying to spider all blogs on the web, the Ask.com blog and feed search engine only includes blogs that have been subscribed to within Bloglines. That will stem quite a bit of the blog spam.

There's a lot of useful information on blogs and hopefully the search engines can find a way to package that information in a way that maintains regular search results quality and gives the user the option of including blogs or not in the search results.

4) SEO / blogging seems to be a close-knit community (despite being all over the world) - how do you make sure the ideas are communicated to a wider audience, especially to non-technical business people who need to benefit from these techniques?

Syndication to online publications with more of a mass market audience is one way of reaching a wide audience about SEO. I do this with a blog called Search Engine Smartsover at AllBusiness.com, a portal for small businesses offering a wide variety of resources. Another method I use to communicate the message and opportunity of marketing through search, blogs and news channels is to get contributed articles published in print and online industry publications.

5) Blogging has certainly caught the attention of the media and the growth in corporate blogging seems to prove that it is rapidly being accepted as hugely important to managing online reputation. Now there's such a big buzz about podcasts - will they have the same impact as blogging?

Corporate blogging is on the rise, but most executives are far from accepting it . There's a long way to go in making blogging a standard part of a corporate communication and public relations strategy. Most businesses still treat . As far as podcasts go, I think the more media options that are available with a blog or web site, the more you have to work with as a marketer to engage the intended audience. While podcasting is getting a lot of buzz, it is not a widely accepted format - yet. Online video is also getting a lot of buzz lately, but overall numbers are low there as well. As marketers understand how these media are actually engaged by consumers both online and offline, on mobile devices for example, then they will be better prepared to take full advantage of their marketing possibilities.