Henry Blodget, Silicon Alley's Chief Insider, has spent the last several months creating compiling a list of the SAI 25 - the most valuable digital startups in North America.

We landed on the 'Contenders' list at number 43. They have a pretty detailed description of the methodology they used, which is an interesting read.

We're not surprised to see Facebook heading up a list that includes such heavy hitters as TheLadders, LinkedIn, and Digg. Blodget and crew also recognized some 'if they were run as fully monetized commercial enterprises' valuations of Wikipedia, Craigslist and Mozilla Corp.

Kudos to Henry and the entire team over at Silicon Alley Insider.

We're honored to be on the list.

Enough back-patting. We’re getting back to work.

Posted by Seth Dotterer at 16:29

SEOs descend on New York!

Today kicks off a busy week for the LinkExperts' staff – tonight is the inaugural meeting of the SEMPO New York Working Group, being hosted by Yahoo. Sara Holoubek has done a great job of getting together 130 of New York search's best and brightest - and we're thrilled to be a part of it.

Following that, Search Engine Strategies' SES NY returns Monday through Thursday of next week, and Wednesday we’re having our exclusive networking dinner at the Palm.

We expect to be exhausted by Thursday - but we'll have a chance to get reacquainted with many of our friends and colleagues. If you’re going to be in New York (or are here already) let us know, we’d love to catch up!

Posted by Seth Dotterer at 09:32

Planning a ‘super’ advertising campaign?

The cost of a Super Bowl commercial has once again broken last year’s record. For 2008, the average cost of a 30 second spot during the big game will run a whopping $2.7mm. While the benefit of reaching such a broad audience of potential new customers can not be disputed, the prohibitive cost of the commercial makes it imperative that this investment is supported by your company’s presence/ visibility on the Internet.

For example, if that big budget commercial advertises core services that you provide (“web hosting”, “mortgages”, “next day shipping”, etc), internet searchers will expect to easily find your brand when searching those terms on the Internet. Strong rankings for core business terms will ensure potential customers find your business on the Internet regardless of whether they type in the businesses’ URL directly, or if they search the above referenced buzz words listed in the commercial. Of course, if searchers are not finding your business on the first page of search results for the respective search term, your multi-million dollar advertisement can actually drive new customers to your competition (the vast majority of searchers do not click through to page 2 of the Search Results).

For market leading brands with the resources to advertise in the Super Bowl, poor rankings in Natural Search represent an enormous missed opportunity.

Furthermore, long after the game is over, potential customers will continue using search to find relevant product and service providers. If your brand is not ranking on Page 1 for these queries when potential customers search, your competitors will enjoy the traffic, conversions and brand awareness created by Page 1 visibility.

For companies that have done the building blocks of SEO (building user friendly sites with well organized content and critical mass of backlinks), LinkExperts can catalyze your initial efforts and help complete the last mile in Natural Search…

Posted by J.P. Barnych at 17:36

SearchInsider has a remarkable article today on what effect a U.S. recession would have on search. Here's the article

It’s a compelling argument– that if U.S. disposable income goes the way of Eudora and “You’ve got Mail”, people might start looking to tighten their belts, and ultimately stop surfing for new and exciting toys online. The resulting slowdown in search, so goes the argument, might be a pretty abrupt wake-up call to those search professionals who are counting on search engine budgets’ steady march upward.

Chris Copeland’s article is an interesting posit – that consumer confidence is slipping and resulting query volumes may dip– but we think he may have missed the main idea by suggesting that TV ad spending is the answer. Certainly if Copeland is suggesting that a $3 million Super Bowl ad is the antidote, he must not have been watching the ads for the last couple of years. Branding, yes, but have you seen a lot of compelling calls to action? And really, are you slicing and segmenting your target audience when you have a third of the U.S. market barely paying attention while they drink and socialize?

Doesn’t it make more sense to just do search better?

Stuck in between Copeland’s ‘paid search is dying’ and ‘TV is the answer’ rhetoric is a superficial response that moving the bar in organic search might provide a solution that triages this ROI slip. But in our opinion – that’s real the answer, not multi-million-dollar-all-or-nothing gambles.

Invest in organic search. Measure your ROI. Test. Repeat.

Our customers know that targeted and specific investment in organic search pays off big.

If indeed we are heading into a recession – doing search right isn’t becoming less important, it’s becoming mission critical.

Posted by Seth Dotterer in Search Engine News at 18:09

We were just informed that LinkExperts has been named an AlwaysOn's OnMedia Top 100 winner.

AlwaysOn has put together a list of some of the most innovative, up and coming advertising and marketing companies, and we're honored to have been selected. When you’re blazing a trail in a new industry, it is wonderful to have your innovation recognized. We share this success with the hundreds of premium brand marketers, publishers, and agencies with whom we work on an ongoing basis.

The AlwaysOn OnMedia conference is coming up this Monday - Wednesday at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel here in New York City.

Our press release can be found in its entirety here.

Posted by Seth Dotterer in Company News at 14:52