Yahoo's Social Media expert and Marketing Director, Dr. Hunter Madsen will be joining the list of innovative speakers at the much anticipated Canadian Online Travel Conference - Online Revealed Canada, to be held this May 28th and 29th at the Sheraton Centre, downtown Toronto.

Dr. Madsen will address the future of Online Social Communities, Yahoo's plan for their social media services, and how Canadian travel professionals can connect with social communities and generate revenues from social media platforms such as Blogs.

Discussing a wide variety of topics including the power of social media, behavioral targeting and its effect on both branding and direct response for marketers, Hunter brings a uniquely Canadian focus on how to leverage the online travel marketing space.

Last year Madsen took over as head of marketing for Yahoo! in Canada, having come from the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. Originally a social scientist, Madsen received his doctorate from Harvard University and subsequently lectured there before beginning his marketing career with J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency. Hunter is considered a pioneer of marketing in new media.

"Canada has long been an important market for Yahoo!", said Hunter, "We are pleased with the opportunity to present current and relevant information as it relates to Social Media and its effect on the travel marketing to the Canadian Tourism Industry."

Dr. Hunter Madsen will join Martin Byrne, Director, Yahoo Search Marketing and Online Revealed Canada's closing keynote speaker.

"Yahoo's vision of providing quality education for the Canadian Online Travel Market is perfectly aligned with the goals of Online Revealed", said Patricia Brusha, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Event, "The support of Yahoo Canada adds a new level to the unique quality of content for this year's conference."

Space is still available but limited as Conference Registration is filling up quickly. Canadian hospitality industry professionals are securing space within the 16 unique workshops - exploring four different tracks of hands-on application sessions including: Search Engine Optimization, Paid Placement, New Media and Travel.

Register online, or visit www.onlinerevealedcanada.com for more information and a detailed conference agenda.

Members of the media are invited to attend the Conference - please inquire for further information.

About Yahoo! Canada Co.:
Yahoo! Canada Co. is a leading Internet destination that provides online products and services to meet the needs of Canadians and offers a range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users.

For Conference Registration or Sponsorship information, please contact Patricia Brusha at 416-817-5595. Online Revealed Canada 2007 will be held on May 28 & 29 at The Sheraton Centre in Toronto.

Wolf21 today announced its new corporate small business marketing brand, an important step in the convergence of Yellow Pages advertising and Search Engine Marketing.

"Over the past few months, we have begun to build a powerful new company," said Barry Byers, president of Wolf21. "Today we are sharing with both national and local advertisers important information specific to their individual industry. Our goal is simple - we will deliver aggressive, visionary and outstanding leadership to each of our customers. Our new brand represents that promise."

"This is a major shift for our employees as we set forth on the future of building a world-class organization," said Mike Cloke, vice-president and chief technical officer of Wolf21. "Today's unveiling marks the beginning of a new era. We will endeavor to make the Wolf21 brand the best, most trusted and most admired leader in the small business marketing arena."

Wolf21 partnered with Search Engine Academy, a world-class search engine optimization (SEO) training organization, to develop an SEO training program specifically for Wolf21 clients. The training is the first step in building search engine marketing awareness throughout the small business marketing audience. Wolf21 will soon begin developing advertising campaigns to promote the new brand with a state of the art search engine marketing program.

WOLF21, created in 1996 is a certified marketing representative (CMR) and a member of the Yellow Pages Association (YPA). The company is also certified in Advanced Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Advertising. The company offers National and Regional Yellow Pages advertising program management and International Search Engine Marketing Services.

During the launch of the small business marketing brand and for a limited number of new national yellow pages clients, the company offers free search engine marketing services for 6 months.

Thanks to a new online marketing service called Zigogo (www.zigogo.com), businesses now have an innovative and cost-effective way to create online exposure and bring local customers through their door. Zigogo is like an online concierge who knows all of the best restaurants, clubs and shops in the neighborhood and delivers searchable, relevant and real-time calendars, menus and special events information directly to customers online or on their mobile phone. Customers can watch videos, browse pictures and even get door-to-door driving directions for businesses in their neighborhood--all available wherever they are and whenever they want it!

In 2006 over 70% of the annual purchases made by the average American household were made locally within 30 miles of their home. Even though these customers do the majority of their business locally, most of those same customers turn to the Internet for the information they need to make a buying decision. 2007 promises to bring that number up by 5 to 7% with more and more people buying products and goods from the local businesses in their areas. This is the reason why it is important to make sure that your business shows up in local search results as well as local city guides.

Because of the global nature of the Internet, finding information about local businesses isn't always easy. Many times the search results and banner ads a customer sees are for businesses that aren't even in the same state. Sometimes it's easier to get information about a business halfway around the world than it is to get information about the business around the corner.

According to Zigogo founder, Angelique Cardon, "Right now, people in your area are looking for places to go, things to do and stuff they need. At Zigogo.com we created a new online marketing service which helps businesses connect with those local customers. For just the cost of a single one-time print ad, businesses can get a year-long 24/7 marketing machine that actively ushers customers to their store, restaurant or club."

Zigogo offers two service packages--each is tailored for the individual business to fit their needs and budget. Businesses can update their Zigogo space as often as they like with events, descriptions, menus, images and video. This is a great way to keep people up to date with new information about up coming events from your company. Our packages will provide you with easy to use tools that will help make your business page more attractive to viewers. With just a few clicks you can have your business page set up and live on the internet in no time.

Right now, someone in your area is looking for a local company to do business with. Zigogo can help them find you. Let us do the marketing for you and help push your business to the next level. For more information, visit www.zigogo.com.

Corvent, LLC, a premier provider of web conferencing services and event registration solutions, today announced an upcoming web seminar, "Lower CPCs, Raise CTRs and Boost ROI with Advanced Pay-per-Click Techniques." This advanced PPC web seminar is the second event in a free series designed to reveal the latest in search engine marketing techniques.

Event: Lower CPCs, Raise CTRs and Boost ROI with Advanced Pay per Click Techniques
Date: May 16, 1 PM Eastern / 10 AM Pacific
Register: http://www2.eventsvc.com/corvent/marketing/catalog?trk=pr49a

Kent Lewis, a leading authority on SEM and founder of Anvil Media, will be presenting along side his colleague Hallie Janssen. Says Kent: "Many companies out there are currently managing pay-per-click programs, but few have truly maximized their potential. In our presentation, we will outline advanced PPC strategies that can drastically improve return on investment."

The event is the second in a three-part interactive series entitled, "Boost Your SEM IQ: Advanced Search Engine Marketing," The previous topic covered advanced Search Engine Optimization, while the third event will introduce Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Online Reputation Management (ORM) techniques.

For more information:
http://www2.eventsvc.com/corvent/marketing/catalog?trk=pr49b

All registrants will receive a complimentary copy of Anvil Media's "The Marketer's Guide to Optimizing Your Web Content for Search Engines," which offers tips on everything from coding and writing to the design of company websites. Attendees will have the chance to participate in live polls and pose their own questions during the event. A recording will also be made available to those who are unable to join. Please call 503.594.1967 for further information.

About Corvent, LLC
Corvent delivers customized solutions to companies seeking to communicate more efficiently and more effectively through web conferencing technologies. Corvent specializes in producing top notch seminars on multiple web conferencing platforms while providing comprehensive event registration and reporting tools that supply aggregate attendee data and presentation-worthy reports. For more information on Corvent, LLC, please visit www.corventllc.com or call 877.217.5656.

About Anvil Media
Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Anvil Media, Inc. is a search engine marketing (SEM) company specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) management and online reputation management (ORM) services. Anvil helps clients, ranging from startups to Fortune 500s, generate a return-on-investment (ROI) on their online marketing programs by generating qualified leads or sales.

Cambridgeshire based, online marketing specialist, Get On Fast (www.getonfast.com) have released a five point check list for companies wishing to improve web page content, in an effort to improve search engine rankings.

"Search engine spiders can only recognize the plain text content of a web page. Images, colors and the general design layout of a web page are irrelevant to search engines as they are unable to interpret this type of information," explains Get On Fast (www.getonfast.com) creative director, Robert Smith.

"It is therefore quite obvious that web pages that contain mainly images and very little text are unlikely to achieve high search engine rankings. It is also very surprising that there are a huge number of websites that fall into this trap," says Smith.

"The more relevant content that exists on a page, the better. This is because search engine spiders analyze the text to understand the topic, content and relationship with other web pages. Not only is more text valuable to search engines it is also of great value to website visitors," says Get On Fast's (www.getonfast.com) Robert Smith.

Get On Fast's (www.getonfast.com) five point check list for improving the content of web pages include:
*Choose the right keywords
Spend time to identify the best performing keywords for a particular web page, based on search volume and the number of websites competing for a specific keyword. The strongest performing keywords are those with a high search volume and low competition.
*Write web page content for humans not search engine spiders
Stuffing web pages with repetitive keywords will not only make a website unreadable by visitors, but can also harm search engine rankings. Search spiders use complex algorithms to determine search engine rankings and can easily identify pages that contain artificially high numbers of keywords. Therefore make sure that the web pages appear natural and are easily readable by human visitors.
*Avoid duplicate content
Using duplicate content may result in a website being penalised by search engines or even banned from search results ,as most search engines will consider this a spamming technique. It is important that unique content is created for each web page in order to develop strong search engine rankings.
*Develop new content on a regular basis
Adding fresh content to a website is a great way to keep search engine spiders visiting a site on a regular basis. The more content created, the greater the opportunity to increase a websites search engine rankings, for the optimised keywords on that page.
*Format the content of web pages
Highlight headings and important keywords. Use headline tags, bold text and bullet points to ensure keywords stand out. Only highlight when necessary, and make sure that the text looks natural to search engine spiders.

"By following these simple guidelines, it is possible to create a website that is both search engine friendly and achieves high search engine rankings," says Get On Fast's (www.getonfast.com) Robert Smith.

Wisbech based Get On Fast (www.getonfast.com) is a specialist online marketing agency. Their range of services include Search Engine Optimisation, Website Design, Website Promotion and Online Advertising, Link Popularity Services and Online PR.

WHO: Erica Forrette, Director, Marketing of Adapt Technologies, Inc. Erica is a seasoned online marketing professional with over 4 years' experience managing search engine marketing campaigns in a variety of industries. She is a member of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) and a contributor to the SEMPO Institute's Advanced Search Advertising course. Currently, she handles marketing strategy and online customer acquisition efforts for Adapt, the creator of the self-service PPC management & optimization software tool called SEM-in-a-Box.

WHAT: Internet Marketing Day, presented by the Direct Marketing Association of Southern California. Internet Marketing Day will provide marketers with powerful internet marketing tactics explained in plain English. Sessions at the event will focus on SEO, PPC and Web site usability. Erica Forrette will head up the "Optimizing Your Pay-Per-Click Advertising" session, which covers goal setting, tracking, and tips for testing and optimizing PPC marketing campaigns on Google, Yahoo and MSN. For more information, visit http://dmasc.org/ladma.cfm?pid=May07_event.

WHEN: May 17, 2007, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. PST

WHERE: LAX Sheraton Gateway Hotel, 6101 West Century Boulevard, Los Angeles CA 90045, USA

WHY: Internet Marketing Day is offered as an educational and networking opportunity by the Direct Marketing Association of Southern California (DMAsc).

About Adapt Technologies, Inc.
Adapt Technologies, Inc. creates practical, self-service campaign management solutions for marketers to more effectively manage their online marketing campaigns and improve results. The company was founded in December 2004 and is venture-funded by Mohr, Davidow Ventures and Emergence Capital Partners. Our management team, engineers and search engine marketing specialists are highly experienced in developing marketer-focused solutions to internet marketing challenges, and come from leading universities and Internet companies including Caltech, Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Amazon.com. For more information about Adapt, visit: www.adapt.com.

About the DMAsc
For over 30 years, the Direct Marketing Association of Southern California (DMAsc) has been dedicated to supporting the common business interests of Southern California direct marketers. This is done by informing, educating and communicating to users and suppliers of direct marketing services; providing forums for the exchange of ideas and information; promoting the highest standards of professionalism and ethics; and serving as an authoritative voice on behalf of direct marketers. For information, visit www.DMAsc.org.

New Ecommerce Research Sheds Light on Checkout Myths

The study looks at ecommerce checkout strategies at the Top 100 Online Retailers to determine which tactics are used most and work best. The report is free to download and requires no registration. A companion webinar, hosted by report researcher Jason Billingsley of Elastic Path Software and web marketing expert Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts, will be held May 17th, 12pm ET to discuss the findings in depth with full attendee interaction.

Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) May 9, 2007 -- We assume a prominent return policy, site security badge, and shorter checkout process will lead to an increased conversion rate, but is this truly the case? Many online retailers are both time crunched and resource strained. They are unable to legitimately test which tactics do and do not work. Unfortunately, when determining which best practices to adopt, decisions are often based on hunches and not fact.

A new report evaluates the checkout strategies of the Top 100 Internet Retailers and seeks the correlations between the checkout tactics and success rates. The Ecommerce Checkout Report observed top performing online stores for 23 specific checkout characteristics affecting the customer experience in three categories 1) speed and ease of use; 2) security and confidence; and, 3) profit enhancement.

The report attempts to answer questions like: Does a shorter checkout process really decrease shopping cart abandonment? Should you use an order confirmation screen? Does live chat improve conversions? Study samples included a variety of vertical market groups including apparel and accessories, computers and electronics, and both high and low ticket value product retailers.

Interesting findings within the report:
Conversion rates were nearly double at retailers selling high ticket priced items when coupon code entry was not available.
Conversion rates were a full 40% higher where Top 100 retailers did not request a CVV (Card Verification Value), yet over 55% of them do.
36% of Top 100 retailers offer alternative payment options such as PayPal, Bill Me Later, or Google Checkout, but conversion rates were convincingly higher at retailers who did not offer alternative payment types - more than double at retailers selling high ticket value items.

Principal report researcher, Jason Billingsley of Elastic Path Software -- an ecommerce software vendor, explains, "Our goal with this report is to give online retailers a yardstick for comparing the effectiveness of their own checkout strategies. Hopefully, it will give them incentive to start testing tactics that seem to be most effective for increasing conversions."

Beyond the complimentary report, readers can hear anecdotal commentary at an upcoming Webinar on May 17 at 12 p.m. ET with panelists Jason Billingsley and noted industry expert Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts. Webinar registration is free and the format will allow for questions to the experts. The collected conversations will form the basis of a follow up prescriptive report including objective recommendations for improving conversion rates in specific industries.

Read The Ecommerce Checkout Report and companion blog series (no registration is required):
http://www.elasticpath.com/ecommerce-checkout-report/

Sign up for the interactive webinar:
http://www.elasticpath.com/ecommerce-checkout-report/webinar/

PRWeb, a leading online press release distribution newswire and a Vocus (NASDAQ: VOCS) company, today announced the launch of "BlogThis," a new social media tool enabling bloggers to easily post and comment on PRWeb press releases in their blogs.

Part of PRWeb's growing social media toolset, "BlogThis" leverages the growing influence of Web 2.0 technologies to provide additional online visibility for PRWeb press releases. Bloggers can link their PRWeb account to their personal blog, providing a shortcut to post commentary on PRWeb news releases to their blog.

"As blogs and other social media grow in importance to public relations professionals and marketers, PRWeb continues to pioneer new methods to enhance the online visibility of our customers' press releases," said Joel Baker, PRWeb's President and COO. "BlogThis increases the interaction between social media and our customers, facilitating the process for bloggers and increasing the potential coverage for our customers' press releases within the social media world."

PRWeb's BlogThis feature is available for press releases distributed at the Social Media, SEO and Media Visibility levels.

About PRWeb
PRWeb is recognized as a leading online news and news release distribution service worldwide. Since 1997, PRWeb has been changing the way businesses, marketing departments and public relations firms think about press releases. PRWeb was the first company to develop a distribution strategy around direct-to-consumer communication and to build and offer a search engine optimized platform for press release distribution. PRWeb, located in Ferndale, WA, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vocus, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand public relations management software. For more information, go to http://www.prweb-inc.com.

Tracy Fredrychowski, CEO of Small Business Web Solutions, Inc. announced today that they have been licensed to officially deliver SEO Certification Workshops throughout South Carolina.

The SEAofSC is a training workshop offering 2-Day Beginner, 3-Day Advanced or 5-Day Mastery SEO Workshops that were developed by leading SEO Industry Educators, Robin Nobles and John Alexander.

Tracy Fredrychowski of SEAofSC stated that, "Companies are looking to hire individuals that hold SEO Certification credentials. Companies are relying more and more on their Web sites as a major part of their marketing plan. They want to be assured that they are reaching their Internet based customers and that they are taking full advantage of what the Internet can do for their business. Being able to teach workshop students the latest principles and strategies needed to gain those top positions on Google, MSN and Yahoo! is exciting."

In describing the 5-Day Mastery Workshop, Fredrychowski added, "Many companies spend hundreds even thousands of dollars monthly on PPC (pay per click) ads. Teaching these companies how to achieve top organic (non-paid listings) search results can save them valuable marketing dollars previously spent on PPC ads."

5-Day Students attending the SEO Workshops can expect to learn:
How to Utilize User-Generated Content for Attracting New Traffic
Social Media Marketing Strategies
6-Step System for Gaining Top Rankings
Keyword Research
Which Search Engines and which Directories are Most Important
Advantages of Paid Inclusion
How to Stay out of Trouble with the Search Engines
How to Build Link Popularity
Working with Blogs
Converting Visitors to Buyers
Affiliate Marketing
In-depth Review of Google, Yahoo and MSN
Latent Semantic Indexing
Link Reputation
Truth and Myths About Search Engine Robots
Why Cascading Style Sheets are so Important
Article Marketing
Work Around Strategies - Frames, Flash, Databases Sites, Image Maps, JavaScript
Pay Per Click Advertising
Web Site Statistic and Log Analysis
How to Start a SEO Business

Any SEO or Webmaster or Web site owner who wants to understand exactly what the search engines are looking for without guessing will truly benefit from this workshop. After class each 3 and 5-Day student will leave the workshop with continued guidance from a 6 Months free Mentoring Program that will help them put their SEO skills to work.

Fredrychowski stated, "Students will work on their own Web site during the workshop and learn to recognize its strengths and weaknesses, along with applying their newly discovered SEO skills…putting the power of Internet marketing to work for them.

Fredrychowski concluded, "We have been offering SEO services to our clients for over 7 years and we know the significant impact good quality optimization has on a Web site. Being able to provide students with enhanced SEO skills, along with SEO Certification is just the beginning in making their Web sites more profitable."

The Search Engine Academy of South Carolina is the exclusive authorized training workshop to deliver SEO Certification throughout the state of South Carolina. Workshops are held in Lexington, Greenville and Charleston, SC.

For additional information on workshop dates and locations please contact Tracy Fredrychowski or visit www.searchengineacademysc.com.

Tracy Fredrychowski, CEO of Small Business Web Solutions, Inc.
Professional SEO Instructor, Search Engine Academy of South Carolina
Phone: 803-356-2995
http://www.searchengineacademysc.com

www.netconcepts.com -- Netconcepts, the premier natural search firm enabling a leading tier of the top 200 Internet Retailers to "get found" online, is proud to new welcome new team member, Lead Search Strategist Chris "Silver" Smith to its Madison, WI, office.

As part of his role, Smith will be shaping the future development of Netconcepts GravityStream™ product. GravityStream, a performance based SEO management platform, is currently helping companies like Cabela's to increase online revenue as a direct result of attaining page 1 Google rankings for unique, yet highly competitive search terms.

An organic search engine optimization pioneer, Smith previously served as Manager of Administration of Texas A&M University's Cartographic Service Unit, where he assisted with portions of the university's earliest website presence.

More recently, as Head of Technology & Development for Verizon Superpages.com, he was awarded a number of individual and team awards by the corporation, including the prestigious Verizon Individual Excellence Award, and was cited for increasing the company's overall revenue by millions of dollars per year.

Smith has five patents pending five patents pending in local search technology, user-interface display applications, and local information ratings systems. His work has been published on numerous web sites, including SearchEngineLand.com where he writes on Local Search topics.

"It's an honor to be working for Netconcepts, a firm as dedicated to the ever-changing principals of organic search engine optimization as I am personally," states Smith. "By offering continually improving products such as GravityStream, our clients, like our tag states, are always assured to 'get found'".

"We at Netconcepts are proud to welcome Chris to the GravityMarket team," states Brian Klais, Netconcepts VP of Search. "Chris brings with him a great deal of experience in the field of search and we are confident that his added vision will by adding him to our development for years to come."

About Netconcepts, LLC
Netconcepts®, LLC, is committed to arming top Internet retailers with online strategies and technology platforms designed to increase online sales. With proprietary technology and processes including GravityStream™ and GravityMarket™, online retailers will "get found" on the search engines. Online retailers succeeding with the aid of Netconcepts, include Discovery Communications, Northern Tool, Home Shopping Network, Kohl's Department Stores, REI, and Cabela's among other brands. Netconcepts is based in Madison, Wisconsin, with a production facility in Auckland, New Zealand.

Netconcepts
www.Netconcepts.com