As a marketer, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two days to get really excited about…why? Because people WANT to BUY stuff; and buy a lot of it. It’s a rare “lapse in time” where we don’t have to work quite as hard to make a sale…

…or is it?

Maybe it’s not about working harder, but working smarter. That’s right, wouldn’t it be smart to meet consumers where they’re at with an opportunity to say, “Here’s the best price for this product…oh, you can buy it right here too.” Well, my friends, this is reality and the technology is causing a bit of a holiday shopping war that bridges the online AND offline retailers.

Enter: Amazon’s iPhone app, Price Check. Yet again, Amazon has done it. Now, it’s nothing new to scan a bar code and compare prices (which they’ve been able to do since October). It’s a whole new ball game this technology is paired with a merchant account and credit card processor, and put front and center of the mobile device world.

They released this app just in time to cause a stir for Black Friday shopping. Why is it causing a stir you ask? Well, this app was seriously designed and marketed to snipe off the sales away of offline retailers. Consumers can scan a bar code on a product, type the name of the product or even say the name into their phone. That’s right, game over. This means that anywhere a consumer wants to they can use the app to search for an item they might be holding in their hand, standing inside an offline retailer. If the app returns a better deal, they can buy it through their phone right there. And guess who gets paid on that sale? That’s right, the lovely folks at Amazon.com.

I personally think it’s awesome, but I have to say that offline business owners may be less-than-enthused. At this juncture, we see that offline retailers really need to start paying attention to things like “check-in social media” where their visitors use social media (i.e. FourSquare) to check-in at the physical location and receive discounts. That’s just one example off the top of my head…the point is that brick-and-mortar businesses need to aggressively pursue the integration of technology and social media into their sales processes.

So, Rand “The Wizard of Moz” Fishkin is one of my favorite writers on the subject of search engine optimization and, even more so, the business side of search marketing.

Yesterday Rand wrote a fantastic article regarding a “Ten Question Litmus Test for Professional SEOs” and will be posting his answers to the questions soon. If you’re someone getting ready to interview a lower-level SEO, these questions would be awesome! And if you’re on the flip-side of that coin…knowing the answers to these questions is just flat-out a good idea.

Ok, here’s Rand’s list:

1. Which is more likely to have a positive impact on a page’s search engine rankings and why – 10 links from 1 website or 1 link each from 10 different websites?
2. Explain the difference between the following items and how the search engines treat them – 301 response code, 302 response code, canonical URL tag and meta refresh.
3. How can the meta robots tag impact how search engines crawl, index and display content on a web page?
4. Who are the top 2 search engines (as ranked by share of queries) in the following countries – the United States, United Kingdom, Russia and China?
5. Name at least 3 elements critical to ranking well in Google Local/Maps/Places search.
6. What aspects of social media marketing have a positive impact on search engine rankings (apart from the value of direct links from the social sites)?
7. List 5 tags/locations on a page where employing a target keyword can have a positive effect on search engine rankings.
8. Describe the distribution of search query demand and what is meant by the “fat head” and “long tail.”
9. Name 6 tools/sources that will display a list of external URLs that link to a webpage.
10. What are some ways to positively influence the ratio of pages a search engine will crawl and index on a website?
11. BONUS! Describe the concept of topic modeling and how modern search engines might use it to improve the quality of their results.

I will try to remember to post a link to Rand’s answers later when he posts them. (UPDATED: here are the answers.)

Until then, if you don’t know or aren’t sure about any of these…do some research and learn it! Be sure the information you’re reading is fresh!

Unfortunately, we all need each other to be successful with organic search. The most important thing you can do as the SEO Manager is…well, know everything. I hate to break it to you, but from my personal experience, you literally need to know the lingo and concepts of every facet that goes into a SEO campaign. In other words, you can’t just whip up some keyword-based title tags and build some inbound links…

You have to be willing to ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES and hack together some code, or mess with server settings on your personal sites in your spare time, or study the effectiveness of particular graphic elements on a web page. Then you need to brush up on your presentation skills so you can communicate with your executives about how important it is to rank organically for your targeted keywords (and what that will mean for revenue).

Now, I’m not saying you have to be an all-star at programming or designing or building servers, etc. But, you absolutely do need to be well-versed in the concepts of every hand that plays a part in your SEO campaign. Why?

Because it is ESSENTIAL that you can effectively and efficiently communicate with each group in a way that each will understand (at an optimal level). Just like in “regular life” these people are unique and individual, meaning they don’t all speak the same “language” or comprehend things the same way.

My advice is to do the following:

• Stay current on each facet of SEO (servers, code, design, linking, indexing, keyword research, tools, etc.)
• Learn more about the individuals that you’re working with, so you can communicate with each one in a unique way
• Be overly detailed, remember that many developers/designers/IT jedi’s/etc. don’t totally understand SEO
• Document everything so you can easily identify “bottlenecks” and how to get past them in future efforts
• Report everything in detail so you can show the execs how awesome and valuable you are to the company (remember they don’t speak in terms of keywords and links, it’s dollars and cents!)

Good luck with your in-house SEO efforts and take my advice seriously…if you don’t this photo will only be the beginning of your SEO-family dysfunction:

Here’s an interesting chart that details Google’s business acquistion activity since 2001:

The latest company getting attention the Google’s business acquisition department is the deal-a-day giant, Groupon. On a side note, I think the amount of deal-a-day sites popping up all over the internet is getting a bit nauseating. It’s certainly following the path of the social networking sites boom…

Here’s an article covering the rumors:

(Original by: Kara Swisher) According to multiple sources close to the situation, Google is in discussions with local deals powerhouse Groupon about buying it.

Without making the requisite joke about the deal of the day, sources said the price being considered is certainly no discount–well above the $2 billion to $3 billion that Yahoo offered Groupon in acquisition talks that took place earlier this year.

But sources cautioned that the talks are not complete, and could also end up without any result, as the Yahoo discussions did.

In an email, a Google spokesperson said with some style: “Per usual, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation. If we did we’d be busy 24/7!”

A Groupon spokesperson was also sassy, noting: “Thanks for the heads-up!”

Still, the company appears to be engaged in a pattern of shopping itself around, via its bankers Allen & Co., even though Groupon investors have expressed a desire to stay independent many times.

But could there be other interested parties poking around, given the explosive revenue growth of Groupon–whose revenues are reportedly upward of $50 million a month–in the huge local retail market?

Sources said only three could pay such a high price: Microsoft, Amazon and, perhaps the most logical buyer, eBay.

Facebook is another company that could be interested, of course, although this would be a sizable purchase in both cost and also staff for the social networking giant, which has fewer employees than Groupon.

As does Google, all–except perhaps Facebook, which is not public yet–have more than enough cash reserves, as well as stock, to pay up for one of the more promising start-ups in a lucrative arena.

That would be local commerce. Currently, despite a plethora of clones, Groupon dominates socially fueled couponing across cities globally.

Owning the hot space around local purchasing and consumer information, combined with the social element, would be a tasty treat for Google.

The Silicon Valley search giant has struggled to deliver social tools to users, even as Facebook has morphed into a potent rival.

Google had looked at social reviews site Yelp for purchase previously, but that deal fell apart.

It has been introducing various local advertising and commerce efforts, efforts that would be turbocharged given Groupon’s quick progress.

In April, Groupon garnered a valuation of well above $1 billion in a massive venture funding.

It has used that money to buy up companies in the U.S. and internationally, trying to solidify itself as the major player in the marketplace.

If Google were to complete a deal to buy Groupon, it would have echoes of its purchase of YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion.

Many felt it a high price at the time, but it looks cheap today given how the site almost completely dominates Web video.

A purchase this size would also likely require bankers. Google’s favored one is Morgan Stanley.

But there is one major issue in a possible Google purchase of Groupon: Even more regulatory scrutiny by the federal government over its power online.

Google narrowly missed getting approval for its $750 million purchase of mobile advertising start-up AdMob.

And it is currently under fire from numerous critics for its proposed purchase of huge flight data firm ITA Software for $700 million.

Those opposed to the acquisition, on antitrust grounds, contend that Google would control travel search in a way that would invite abuse.

Having Groupon would garner Google even more powerful pricing information from both customers and merchants across the globe.

Stay tuned, but check out this video interview I did with Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason this summer in Vancouver, where I asked him specifically about Google’s interest (actually, I suggested he mug Google co-founder Larry Page):

So, what does “being fresh” and these 2 Google-related items have in common? Well, just about everything (whether you’re a user or a search engine marketer). Why? Because Google has dedicated itself to providing fresh, up-to-date information in the SERPs (search engine results pages) nowadays. That’s right, shoot you can even see “Tweets” on the first page of Google now. It’s just crazy how much social media and this fixation on “real-time” has taken over.

Here are a couple bullet-pointed notes on what SEO’s should expect moving forward:

• There’s a much deeper and broader content capability with this new capacity
• There’s a different crawling requirement. We need to keep in mind that the principle of QDF (query deserves freshness) is going to play a big factor in the ranking of webpages for a large number of search queries. That being said, stale content will be crawled much less often.
• It’s been said that Google has up to 200 factors that determine how they rank webpages in search results…with the new Caffeine capacity, it is likely that Google has now “turned on” almost all 200 of these factors.
• In-bound links (a.k.a. backlinks) are going to be looked at differently. Off-page quality is better measured leading to penalties if your link network has a lowering trust score (TrustRank). A lower TrustRank will lead to a crash for sites purchasing links or participating in networks of low-quality sites.
• The testimonial value of reviews (“likes” and “mentions” increases rankings for those with a social network that likes and refers their friends to this site).
• Overall engagement is an increasing factor since now the Caffeine index can more accurately assess these factors.
• Speed matters. There’s a growing importance placed on the “load-time” of your webpages. (Note: for you PPC marketers, tests have shown the faster page load decreases cost-per-click).

Ok, so that’s just a few bulleted notes on what to expect. In summary, here’s what matters: page-load speed optimization, TrustScore and TrustRank, authority optimization, content quality optimization, long-tail query optimization, and freshness of unique content.